At the Jaws of Fenrir
by tremor3258
Summary: A dramatization of the mission 'Ragnarok', captains are called through history to the Federation's darkest hour. But you go to the greatest battle in history with the ships you have, not the fleet you'd want, and what is a 'mission success' can differ captain to captain.
1. The Builder

At the Jaws of Fenrir:

Chapter 1: The Builder

By tremor3258

A Retelling of the 'Ragnarok' mission, with some of my characters. Forgive the indulgence.

* * *

 _1523 AD_

It was festival day on Grimak, greatest of the colonies of Fifth Great Expansion of the Gorn. The celebration of the founding wasn't the largest festival; that honor was reserved for the hatching of the Hegemony, celebrated across all the worlds. The warrior caste had promised a flyby of the newest air-defense units, and Sliss was eager to reach home. Her apartment was in the foreign district; and the usual problem of its distance from the university meant less build up and a better view.

And it was cheap, and the landlord was only genially corrupt. Her neighbor across the hall had gotten some decent imported liquor – clear but with a heavy punch. They would have a good seat on the rooftop as a result. For a non-Gorn, her neighbor wasn't bad, even if her name was nearly impossible to pronounce with a soft palate, and she had _hair_.

She shuddered, even on a linguistics grant, she hadn't had too much exposure to aliens yet. The Hegemony had preferred to keep to themselves, but the need to expand their population had forced them to spend more time around people, though most were mammals. The hair – the bizarre keratin structures – looks like diseased scales, falling in rivulets.

But Sliss's caste was merchant, and they were more open as a result, seeing the angles. The mammals saw the Gorn as plodding, unemotional, and slow. Her knack for acoustics was better than most, and so she had been selected to learn their languages, and then their secrets.

It would be useful, but the government hadn't deemed it worth a very large grant, so she had to live closer to aliens than she wanted on a regular basis. Going to school with them was bad enough. She looked at the sky, it was rapidly darkening, the red dwarf sinking below the horizon. She heard something rustle on the streets around her. The city transit network hadn't been extended all the way to her apartment, and she'd had to walk ten blocks.

The city lights would be on soon, and she feared missing the fly-by. Fortunately, there was always her backup route. An access point to the city's power distribution network – if one breathed in a little, one could shuffle through it. She'd used it the other way, making the morning train. True, it was dark, but this was a _Gorn_ world. The military caste dare not risk the humiliation of one of their people being injured.

She slipped into the alley, squeezing past the transformer stack, humming to itself. Then it was a short walk down a delivery driveway, and she'd saved herself a block. Unfortunately, in the dim light, she missed the trash bins had been shoved out of the way – someone had been hasty. She tripped over them in a clatter in the shadows.

When she finally managed to stand up, cursing and brushing herself off, the light suddenly dropped. She turned, confused. A shadow was blocking the end of the street, far too short to be a Gorn, but she thought she recognized the stance and hair against the silhouette. "Student Revka?" Sliss asked, confused. She hissed, then. The figure was pulling up a hand with the sort of deliberate slowness that screamed 'weapon' from a hundred bad dramas.

She couldn't move in time – inertia fighting against her. But instead of a loud 'bang' there was a trill like a camera flash being discharged. A bright flash filled her vision, and she heard a gasp as something small and heavy ran into her, sending her back to the ground. Her vision finally cleared, seeing her neighbor standing over her, hand on her chest, pushing hard enough to make sure she felt it though not truly pinning her.

The alien's other hand was waving around something she didn't recognize. Her eyes were strained, but they appear to have tumbled behind some blocks of glass or the like, aglow in the city's haze. And beyond… there was another figure, grunting, hand held to his chest. Reddish eyes glared at them, and a rifle was held somewhat listlessly. Student Revka did something with her other hand, she heard a faint hum, and the pressure on her chest ceased.

"Stay here behind the er, wall, Sliss," Revka said gently, patting her, getting the sibilants all wrong as usual. Her other hand came into view, and was holding some sort of plastic contraption that hummed. The other spat something, and Student Revka winced briefly – apparently she understood it.

"No, none of that," Revka said sharply as the other creature struggled to raise the rifle. There was a screech, and his movements slowed and stiffened. The small, pink alien smiled with clear satisfaction and put the box away, pulling something else plastic and small. She rolled out from the glass, and manipulated it somehow. Sliss struggled to sit up in shock. It was a ray gun- a beam of light caressed. Fire sparkled and strobed around the other, warding off the light, and Revka rolled back.

Her eyes widened and she tapped something on her chest, a parabola insignia she had described as a religious symbol. "Get down!" she barked, with all the insistence of the ruling caste, and Sliss found herself dropping in surprise reflex – the pronunciation had been perfect. The stranger managed to get his rifle out, and instead of bullets – or even light, some sort of fog came out. But it hit the glass, and then Sliss realized, it was _light_ , not glass. The fog cleared, and the trash bins scattered from her fall were slumped, corroded.

But she was intact, whatever the barrier was, it held. The shadowy figured snarled, a harsh figure, looking almost melted by Gorn standards. It shimmered with empyrean fires again, and duplicated, creating an even shadier version of itself. They were linked by fire. Student Revka tapped her strange tool again, a sparkle of light bringing an ally, a small halo, glowing orange, floating on no wings. Something burning launched at Revka, but a clean blue shimmer held it off.

She fired again, a cone of orange light – not even fire as the halo added its own otherworldly fury. The shadow vanished, leaving only the lead devil, the fires dying down around it. The figured stepped backward, but slipped against the partially melted garbage, slumping. With a defiant snarl, he pulled a small cylinder from a pocket. Revka started to run, but the devil jammed the cylinder into himself. There was a shudder and a gasp, and then stillness, with a dreadful finality to it.

The light-wall, the ray gun, the small floating halo suddenly vanished in more clear blue light. "Are you all right?" Revka asked. Sliss gaped at the angel, and, to her later shame, it took time to find her voice.

"I thought you were an engineering student, not an angel!" Sliss said at last, to her later regret. Of all the stupid things…

"One never stops learning!" Revka said brightly. "But, yes – I am an engineer." She reached down a hand to help Sliss stand. Amazingly, it worked, and Sliss didn't bring the tiny alien down. Though her ears did detect a slight whirring of gears – a clockwork engineering angel, apparently.

She held her box up again. "Are you hurt at all?" Revka asked, "I'm sorry to knock you down." Sliss brushed her off lightly, and adjusted her tunic back out of askew, unhurt but confused.

"Who was that? What are you?" Sliss said. "Why are you here? What about the roof?" Sliss babbled. She looked at the corpse briefly. It didn't look familiar – years later, she mapped it to a slave species towards Galactic core, past the Azure Nebula.

"Um – we should still have the spot, actually," Revka said weakly. "But I'm sorry he got so close – he was… an operative. He didn't like the sort of future you represent, and the growing Hegemony." That made her straighten a little. Angelic recognition. "I came here last week because we heard he was here, but I was hoping to catch him before this. I'm sorry you were nearly hurt."

"I'm fine," Sliss assured her savior. Sliss spat on the corpse. "Shadowy scum." Revka nodded, and then seemed to catch herself.

"He had his reasons," Revka said. "They're terrible, but they're there." She looked at the fight area. "I'll get the body taken care of – you shouldn't have to deal with any of the questions."

Sliss held her claws up. "I may not be laborer, but I can help with trash." Revka hesitated, eyes lidded, then nodded. Sliss worked to arrange the cans. It took longer than it should, her hands seemed to be shaking. Revka waved some sort of wand over the body and the area. Then she summoned the disc again, which played light over specific spots. With Sliss's sensitive eyes, the spots were slightly discolored. Sliss nodded. Demon blood was supposed to be corruptive.

Sliss had more or less gotten the cans back together, and Revka seemed to be finishing her preparations with the corpse when she heard the booms. "Oh, the flyover! I'd be home by now" Sliss said, another subject of later castigation. Still feeling unsteady – that was where she should be, after all, if things were normal.

Revka seemed to be listening to something, and then spoke quietly. Then she looked up and smiled. "You're right – we should get you back where you should be. It was a pleasure to meet you, Sliss. Your people are courageous and brave, and I'm sorry someone would try to damage that, but glad I got to meet you and see your world."

Sliss nodded. Revka drew her up to her full insignificant height. "But," she said with finality, "I'm afraid we probably won't see each other again. _Fuso_ , execute plan Charlie-Five." The world dissolved to light, then the scattered pieces seemed to reform back to the rooftop. Her stomach suddenly lurched, and dizzy, she found herself in a prepositioned sunbed.

Overhead, the newest air-fighters of her people went through acrobatics, launching flares and amid fireworks across the whole spectrum. Caught in the spectacle, the other residents of the low-cost housing had missed it. Turning a little as she gasped, she saw another barrel there of the distilled spirits Revka had been handing out. With a shaky note on it, "For a good neighbor and a better future."

Overhead, the lights shone across the spectrum, the Hegemony bright.

* * *

Captain Antonine Revka, _U.S.S. Fuso_ , beamed back aboard her ship. Her science officer was waiting with her operations chief. Even for a Reman, he was looking grim, at the bundle that had beamed up beside her. Figuring the exact time origination point of the body would help lock down the Na'kuhl 'insertion' technique. And, given the Republic's torturous recent past, history was not the favorite subject of Subcommander Manas.

"Ambassador S'tass's ancestor has avoided an untimely death in an alleyway," she said happily. "Status report up here?"

She stepped down from the transporter room – carefully, it was built to a century-old style, like much of the ship. All bright colors and thick, well-shielded conduits. But beneath the surface, the hexagonal facets had the sparkling high-resolution of a current transporter, the thick power conduits were really modern electro-plasma instead, carrying loads undreamed of to those dead engineers.

Those in fact, those engineers were yet to be born. Manas looked at the dead operative. "Our credentials continue to hold. Intelligence gear has successfully pulled the databases from the planetary surface, and we are monitoring all possible surface transmissions. There will be a great deal of information about the Fifth Expansion to add to the Federation Library."

"And our other issues?" Antonine asked, moving behind a screen to change back to uniform from civilian wear.

"The temporal and chroniton scanners obviously failed to show any improvement with our additions," Manas said mournfully. "Distortion was only evident at close range and very near the point of temporal impact. Their incursion method still refuses to be remotely identified. Science teams are finally starting to show some improvement at data gathering," Manas said with some schadenfreude.

Temporal Defense was staffed with the timelost, not the best of the best, and grinding people in the Starfleet tradition; from two centuries and alternate timelines of _different_ Starfleet traditions, was proving difficult.

"We have successfully offloaded our 'cargo'," the operations officer, Lieutenant (probationary, as Donaldson often reminded) Feric said, leaning on the transporter console. He shot a look at Manas. "And we've managed to keep a heavy drill schedule going without the Gorn knowing." The Ferengi had the lobes for logistics. "The replicated fabrics will resist any obvious identification as manufactured through that method; and will decay before appropriate methods are discovered. The hardwoods should, given what happens in the next century, fit pretty well into making the Gorn trade deficit that much worse."

Antonine popped her head up at that feeling glum. "Those poor people," she said, and sighed. "Even the Na'kuhl couldn't make that chaos worse, and I wasn't able to even capture him. Going to kill an innocent young woman in a dark alley…"

Manas said, "Still, we detected the deviation enough to be in position. Was there any issues with the target?"

"No, one good thing about a week's stay – she seemed pretty certain I was on the side of angels." Antonine laughed, but shook her head at their questioning looks. "She _really_ misidentified me."

"But it sounds like we made progress up here – what was Donaldson talking about an anomaly? I would have stayed longer otherwise." Antonine said, getting more serious as she finished putting on her uniform. The captain approach to uniform regulations was a blessing – she could use the Sierra model she was used to from her timeline. The Odyssey just felt odd on the shoulders.

The two officers looked at each other uneasily.

Feric offered, "We had a very minor blip in our carrier wave for temporal communications. We sent a query but got back a standard status report to continue mission while in another temporal zone."

"That transmitter is set in our future," Antonine said, now also uneasy. "When was the glitch?"

"Fifteen minutes before the attack on Sliss," Manas said. "Our understanding of temporal theory is the probability of the event at that point should not have caused effects – given the mechanisms of travel used by the Na'kuhl and ourselves."

"All right, something's up then. We need to confirm who we're working for – Donaldson's attention to detail paid off again," Antonine said. "Are we cleared for departure from the ground yet?"

Feric nodded, "Yes, everything is set – we have all scanner points logged to be able to maintain our hologram, and that little probe you suggested is ready with our warp signature. I'm sorry I didn't think of it."

"Well, it's easy to forget how _slow_ speeds are back now," Antonine said. "An endurance of two minutes at warp 9.5 goes a lot longer at these blistering modern speeds of Warp 1.3." She tapped her commbadge. "All hands, this is the captain: prep departure stations." She tapped it again and turned to the others. "Run final checks we didn't leave anything behind when I checked out of the apartment – what, wow, all of six standard hours ago? I'll be on the bridge."

Yama was lingering outside the transporter room to where Antonine nearly tripped over her. She scooped the ship's cat up, and, reflexively scratching it. "And detail someone to lock up poor Yama. We really don't want a repeat of what happened when we arrived." The other two nodded, and Antonine delegated the cat to Feric before heading into the turbolift.

* * *

Donaldson had harbor watch, standing to attention as Antonine came in and moving from the center console. A few seconds behind, the other turbolift opened, disgorging auxiliaries to man the ship's secondary console, unnecessary in a quiet orbit. "Orbit stable, captain. Traffic control has given our exit vector. Sensor sources marked. Holoemitter disguise active with no anomalies, impulse baffles holding."

"How long until our departure?" Antonine asked, settling into standing at her post. Posts were certainly right. The bridge controls were all scattered on various columns across the structure. No hint of old-school ergonomics here. Or 25th century ergonomics. Or any, it seemed at times.

She wasn't sure why the ship, originating a century in the future, seemed to pay little to ergonomics, but they weren't able to access the time travel settings without the original bridge. She'd been forced to set up four-hour watches to avoid physical exhaustion.

"Groundside traffic control has us set for whenever we're ready within the next hour – departure vector logged to helm," Donaldson reported. "Mission go well with Foch pulled away?" He waited a beat, "And did you get my aquavit back?"

"Not sure yet, we'll have to see what the future's like. We didn't get a live capture but I doubt Captain Foch would've made a difference given our last couple missions," Antonine said, pulling up their vector. "Main Engineering: Bridge – I need power now to the temporal core," she ordered.

"Commander Tela here – warp power available," the Tiburonian said over audio cheerfully. "Unhooking the safeties on temporal core. When are we going? Can I plug in the still? Donaldson's been hovering over it." The human officer grimaced and turned away. Antonine hid her smile.

"Tell everyone to stand by and not start the mash yet, I'll let you know when we end up," Antonine advised. "Computer – contact Temporal Relay; Temporal Defense mission contact under one-time code seven-delta."

"Working," responded the computer. "Standby," it said after several seconds.

"We're time travelling – why does it always seem we have to wait for this?" Donaldson said, composure recovering.

"There's about fifteen competing theories I've read-" Antonine began, but stopped. The contact appearing in hologram was _not_ Daniels. Some other human, graying at the temples, someone heavyset.

"Captain Revka – my name is Pavel Chekov. Timeline integration check is three-seven-alpha-four-seven," the man said, with some accent she couldn't place. Donaldson stepped to another control column and nodded.

"It seems we're in the same history, Mister Chekov," Antonine said. "Transferring automated mission report – would you like a summary?"

"No time," the man said with no trace of humor. "Daniels has fallen in the line of duty. The Temporal Liberation Front has joined with Terran Empire forces and nearly overwrote the existence of the Array at New Khitomer. We have a limited window remaining, but it appears all pieces are on the board for Procyon V, and we are seeing massive flux in the timeline. Additional post-Procyon Nexus forces are unavailable."

That caused some muttering on the bridge. Antonine looked around, silencing the mutters. "Do we proceed to the battle?"

"Negative – your previous experience with the Tox Uhat is valuable, and we have time to organize. Proceed to your originating point and then proceed to New Khitomer at the attached timespace coordinates within one hour after arriving, your personal perspective. You are authorized to recruit one ship and crew for the temporal emergency. We have no for using your ship to shuttle multiple ships and removing too many pieces from history at this point could tip the balance," Chekov said.

"Is it alright to alert my normal chain of command?" Antonine said.

"Yes, though we are also alerting through other channels," Chekov said, then looked off screen. "I'm sorry – we're reaching other ships for emergency recall. You have your orders captain." The screen winked out.

"That was fast," Antonine muttered, and winced. Not the best move for morale. "Lock down temporal core onto axis for return and begin charging capacitors for time travel. Communications, contact traffic control – say we got loading expedited and are ready for departure. Lieutenant Feric's probe is ready so plot for temporal event immediately after entering warp. Senior staff meeting in fifteen minutes. Commander Donaldson-"

"Aye, ma'am," Donaldson said, standing up stiffly again. "Going to go check Feric's probe to make sure he didn't get inventive."

"Absolutely," Antonine said. "And I *am* sorry, but I did have to use the last of your aquavit. We did have those recordings from the archive Sliss saw the airshow, so I needed to make sure she had a seat."

"The last of the Freya batch, and most of our first _Fuso_ batch," Donaldson said mournfully, "You'd think even in an isolationist, corrupt society, throwing one extra alien into an empty apartment wouldn't be so expensive."

"Corruption is the theme of the Fifth Expansion, if memory serves," Antonine said, a tad mournfully. There would be mass riots at best on the planet below in several decades, as a variety of cascading mistakes brought down this version of the Hegemony. She could guess what it would be like. Her own home was far closer to the chaos of scarcity economies than most Federation worlds. The history books had made sure the pictures were vivid.

Donaldson saluted. "A well-lubricated society, then, if not well-ordered. Can't believe how usefl a still has been. Who would think distilled spirits would be the best weapon in non-lethal temporal warfare" Antonine shrugged, at that. Replicators were wonderful, but weren't the best at volatile compounds like alcohol, if you liked the people you served it too. And, what had been more important, brewing was brewing – it was much easier to 'obscure' and tweak the origin for whatever world they were at this wekk."

"Fifteen minutes Donaldson, I'm going to check with Tela," she announced.

* * *

The conference room was a weird mishmash of late 26th century and 23rd again. An old-school communication tri-screen in the center of a table, but with a holoprojector mounted on it. Tela was waiting already, even though Antoine had called for her while just in the turbolift. Someday, Antonine would figure out how her chief engineer anticipated her so well.

"How'd it go?" Tela said, direct, though only looking abstracted – she was looking over a sensor module from their latest attempt to crack the temporal core blackboxes. From the blackened condition, it had gone as well as the last ten attempts. At least it wasn't vaporizing their sensors, any more.

Antonine sat heavily. "I held my own- I don't know. All the kit worked, and I _have_ had melee combat before. But he just killed himself without hesitation, or a qualm. How could someone believe so fiercely in something so… monstrously dangerous and stupid?"

Tela sighed, not looking over. "But that's not the real issue?" she prompted. "We have fanatics in this timeline too."

Antonine stopped, looking at the table. Tela tapped it after a minute. The two had worked together closely during the fitting out of the temporal ships, and Antonine was happy to have a good engineer while she got her head around the other departments on the ship, even if Tela was probably headed back to Utopia Planitia in a year or so to lay the groundwork to _build_ these future ships.

"All right," Antonine said, "It was… really close. No, I've never seen someone die that closely. And certainly never so… deliberately. A few long-distant firefights, and those were slower paced. Not sort of throwing stuff down so quickly, and then… just, quiet when it happened."

Tela nodded sympathetically. "They prepped us a lot for combat at the Academy, but we knew it was a certainty going in, not just a likely possibility of our risky business."

"I'll talk to the counselor when… whatever is happening, gets over," Antonine promised. She nodded at the hunk of blackened junk on the table. "Did it get anything?"

"Well, it caught sixteen simultaneous predicted end of life failures," Tela said. "The joke is on the core, though. It didn't get the sensors watching the sensors, this time. I think I caught enough of what it did to enhance local entropy to create small replicas for ground gear, so we can use some of those fancy techniques on away missions."

"And?" Antonine asked, from short, but rich, experience. For Tela, this was terse – there must be a part 2.

"We were able to run a lot of tactical drills with those temporal tricks this week. The computer core on _Fuso_ is a _little_ behind modern except for that M6 standalone – we get any time to a dockyard, I can fix some of the clustering for speed, but if you can authorize freeing up, oh, say, eighty or two hundred cubic meters in the hull, the Romulans have some new quantum relays to coordinate their cloaked ships with those new command ships. Then we could _really_ set some gunnery records now that the crew has figured out which end is the emitter on an antiproton bank," Tela said eagerly.

Antonine calculated mentally. "I'm assuming in the continued hunt for more energy on target, you don't want to drop the redundant particle emitters to the shields or the capacitors." Tela nodded briefly. "That leaves… the holodecks, half the crew quarters, a third of the impulse engines, or most of the life support." Antonine started punching notes on into the console.

"True," Tela allowed. "If the lab space wasn't so distributed it would be an option as well. I suppose we can trundle along with the weapon boosters we have, but you figure a ship from the future would be able to set some records, and quantum shield interpretation would help."

"About that," Antonine asked, casual, "I'm trying to pull up the computer you mentioned but I keep hitting a security seal – it seems the Republic still has the specs classified. How did you know enough of its specs to give a size estimate?"

"Well, Captain, I'd love to tell you, but we have a meeting to prep for," Tela said sweetly.

* * *

The meeting took place on schedule with her departmental chiefs and bridge officers. Manas looked glum. "Despite our attempts to understand the engineering of the temporal technology, we were unable to improve on either the timeline scanners or understand the temporal shift devices the ship uses during the mission," he reported. "Though the rest of the science sections' data from orbit will be very valuable to historians, once it has been sanitized of originating in another time period."

"I didn't see the Na'kuhl commando transport in, and it doesn't sound like Sliss did either – she was distracted by the trashbins and then myself," Antonine reported. "No technological differences from the combat reports we had used for training, though, so it still appears the Na'kuhl got one 'shift' through history. Or at least this history." That caused some nervous chuckles.

"We didn't have any issues with chroniton buildup, temporal diffractions, or gravimetric shifts," Tela reported. "We've run level one diagnostics on all systems over the week. Dilithium matrix is stable – none of the previous disruptions associated with long-range time travel for an object of this mass have been reported." They had done some personal time travelling for missions, or through Daniels' intercession, but this was _Fuso_ 's longest trip under its own power, alone without any experienced hands.

"Extend my thanks to the crew, please, and my apologies they aren't going to get the break we were hoping. Do you feel comfortable we can pull the temporal wake trick Chekov authorized?" Antonine asked. They'd dragged some extra firepower on missions, but, again, had Daniels, who time travelled better than he lied and almost as well as he breathed.

Manas and Hela shared a glance, and the Reman gestured, letting Hela speak. "We ran several simulations since we had some free computer space and time. It's hard to tell with the core; it's usually oriented backwards on our own temporal axis. We've got some simulations I want you to look at later." Antonine nodded.

Manas cleared his throat and Hela got back on subject. "Right. Based on our measurements and observed temporal transits by Alliance craft, we can guarantee at least one cruiser sized ship can transit on the same trajectory." She shrugged, "Maybe several small escorts, but that many warp fields, even on standby, have plenty of odd interactions with the technology we _do_ completely understand."

"It sounded like this isn't a mission for subtlety," Feric observed. "Could we cram a dreadnought in behind us? It sounded like they were hunting for people. I'd love to have the _Enterprise_ backing us up."

Donaldson said stiffly, "The _Enterprise's_ movements aren't precisely known while on missions – I'm not sure we have time to track it down."

Hela said, "Hypothetically, the mass shouldn't be an issue, though the feedback as energy cascades into normal space would be hard on its surface systems. Assuming no time to refit, if Captain Shon didn't mind having someone else be his eyes, it could work." She shrugged

"Actually, I wasn't planning to look for Captain Shon," Antonine said, abstractly, then looked around at everyone in surprise. "Admiral Chekov mentioned the Mirror Universe was an x-factor they were trying to eliminate. The best trained group for that is the Badlands patrol fleets; with time a factor, the best chance to find someone cleared for time travel and battle capable is at Deep Space Nine, given our short time window."

"Admiral Chekov?" Hela asked.

"I did a quick check on the name against the database; apparently Temporal Defense recruiting is even more dramatic than we thought: he served on Kirk's _Enterprise_ ," Antonine said. "Facial recognition puts the approximate age in the early 24th century, though." Hela whistled.

"That's actually alarming," Manas said. "If the best candidate still aligned with the peaceful administration of the timeline is from in the past, then the future could have been twisted to something we would all find very grave. Personal freedom is one of the corner stones of all parts of the Alliance – given the power of time travel-"

"That's not the future yet," Antonine vowed. "If New Khitomer is still under our control, then there's still a good chance, but it's clear they need the best help we can find." She stood up, and turned to look.

"Donaldson, you're in charge of Feric's noisemaker. Make sure the flight path's a match for what we should be, and I want contingency plans if we can't wait around to go to warp – get a shuttle loaded with the flight plan too and tweak it to match our current signature. Don't worry about sparing the coils, and rig it to self-destruct after it can reach a point where it can go to work and drop the probe off," she ordered. The big human grimaced at Feric, and nodded. Feric grinned back.

"Feric, don't look so pleased, you've got the rougher duty – we're inserting back at our relative point at the continuum, so I want you to go over all the operations plans Starfleet had for the week to estimate what's at Deep Space Nine, or within a half-hour at maximum warp. I want experienced captains or flag officers over big ships if we have to pick. Someone having a nervous breakdown over how they may accidentally erase their grandchildren is not someone we have time to quibble with," Antonine said. The Ferengi nodded.

"Manas, look over the temporal scanners if there's any obvious deviation before Procyon, and if the situation 'somehow' unlocked some records about the battle, finally. I know we don't have any information on where we're headed after Khitomer, and they may not know, but I doubt we'll have time for a full briefing." The Reman nodded.

"Tela, run a check on the tactical systems and make sure we've got all the counter-programming for Starfleet ships loaded – get a probe loaded with all out logs for the mission in case we don't have time, and detail some people to make sure all the crew who wants to have personal logs loaded get some time in the," Antonine stopped, checking the clock. "Thirty-five minutes we have left."

She stopped pacing, and leaned against the table – not very dramatic given her height, but one worked with what one had. "I know none of us wanted to go into another mission immediately afterward, but it sounds like this is the big one. Over the last month and a half, I've gotten to know you, and the rest of the crew. I know all of us, no matter what the future brings, will hold to Starfleet's finest tradition so our children have a galaxy worth growing up in." Antonine stood back up and straightened her tunic, not letting her shoulders flex. "Dismissed." Her subordinated nodded back in determination as they stood.

* * *

 _2711 AD_

Thirty-five minutes later, to their eyes, they made transit. With a flash of light and a hole into an endless field of stars, the soundless protests of the laws of physics torn beyond any rational measure, _Fuso_ slid back into its proper place in the spacetime continuum. Everyone on the bridge let out a breath as one. They'd made some eleven transits through time as a group, and no one liked relying on a blackbox technology.

"Confirm location, and start the clock," Antonine ordered, and the corner of the viewscreen lit up with an hour countdown. They'd hopefully dropped into space far enough from DS9 that an average observer would miss them as part of the warp traffic to one of the Federation's busies stations.

Feric looked up from his pillar, "Local star matches Bajor's primary. Message traffic still matches Alliance protocols. No alert is being raised on the station by our presence, and standard traffic protocol query was met by automated buoys."

Manas added with a rumble. "All long-range quasars current signal frequency indicates desired time and space positioning has been achieved."

Donaldson said, "Engineering reports temporal core powering down, all readings in the green."

"Excellent, transmit all mission logs by normal routing to Temporal Defense. Feric, get me that ship list. Proceed to station at full impulse. Secure from yellow alert – Donaldson – get me Deep Space Nine operations," Antonine ordered, and then gave something she'd been dreaded. "Use priority sector alert code."

She always admired the big officer's professionalism – his hands darting over the console didn't even slow down given she had just done one of those few actions that carried an automatic Starfleet review board.

"Kurland here," came back the captain of Deep Space Nine almost instantly, though the background was the replimat. "Captain Revka – when's the emergency?" Kurland was serious, despite the joke – with the responsibilities of the wormhole, the Commander of DS9 carried more security clearance than some vice admirals. "I think I know what your problem is, for once."

"Captain," Feric said, "Most of Task Force 102 is here, but I don't see the _Trafalgar_." He squinted, peg teeth working, "Lot of Romulans too." She nodded in acknowledgement – that was her quantum duplicate's command, though if the _Guardian_ -class cruiser wasn't here, the Admiral was probably joy-riding on some mission.

Which was an absolute shame – a temporal mission they'd been able to do some planning on had her and Foch recruiting Revka for securing an artifact with cosmic implications. Having along the version of her from this time had been … comforting. Still, there should be some senior officers available able to swing above their weight.

"First – Captain, is Ambassador S'tass on board?" she asked.

Kurland showed no surprise at the name – a good sign. "No, the Empire's Embassy is currently under the deputy, the Ambassador is still on New Romulus." The station commander looked worried. "Is that wrong?"

"No, Captain – that's one mission down," she said. "But another came up – I need the sector operational download, and I have a departure of under an hour, maximum, and whatever is the best ship you can spare."

"Ooh – I'd say the _Defiant_ ," Kurland said, "But Commander Sarish is on a strike mission against a True Way pirate base with half the ready fleet, and I'm not sure how much else I can spare. A Republic strike group showed up yesterday, they're on tactical alert around the wormhole, and they're not saying why, exactly. Maybe you can ask them?"

Antonine checked tactical. There was more Republic ships than normal, scattered around the station, but the posture didn't look unusual.

Kurland saw her confusion. "Hang on – ops, this is Kurland – tie the _Fuso_ into our tactical net."

The systems gave a brief beep, and then the picture made sense. The Republic had _three times_ as many ships present as they were letting on – sitting cloaked, and, when combined with the seeming indolence of their visible ships, they formed a cone stretching out from the wormhole to the station. Anything emerging would face a tremendous concentration of power.

"They're still feeding tactical data, so it's not an invasion," Antonine said, stating the obvious as her mind worked. "Our mission didn't take us anywhere near their space, so I can't imagine that's a factor. Did their commanding officer say anything?"

"No, Admiral seh'Virinat showed up, used our transmitter to the Gamma Quadrant for a while – then got navigation permission and sent her ship through," Kurland said, sounding exasperated. "As soon as she did, her whole attack group set up for interdiction and just cites operational security when we ask. Whatever it is, Starfleet Command is backing them up on it."

"I suspect our missions may actually be identical," Revka allowed, given the Admiral's track record for being in the right place at the right time. "What shape is 102 in?"

Kurland shook his head, "Operational – Admiral Revka is in seclusion in the temple, one reason I'm down here instead of ops."

"She let the _Trafalgar_ go?" Antonine asked, surprised.

"She was going to take it on a terraforming support run, but the request from the temple suddenly came up. She kept her flag on _Nagato_ and it's actually fully repaired for once," Kurland offered.

"That sounds… actually, suspiciously ideal," Revka said, and glanced in what she thought was the direction of the wormhole. "I'm going to beam down, to see if they let me in to see me, then." Kurland nodded. "Revka out – we're sending a full briefing, but with the security chain, it may be a little bit before it hits your desk." Kurland nodded, and cut the connection.

"Manas, tactical scan of the _Nagato_ ," Antonine ordered. The big _Yamato_ was in spacedock, of course. Given the nature of the dreadnought as an assault platform – it was either being held back for combat, in combat, or repairing from combat. However, it looked like all the nacelles were attached and the status monitors agreed.

And, unlike most of Starfleet, its crew had a lot of experience – and the ship's systems were tweaked to a much higher performance level, with what looked like some sort of exotic reactive shielding. "Feric, anything else seem as useful for throwing into a battle?"

"Maybe some of the escort squadrons – there's a _Mercury_ group," the Ferengi said, "But I checked – the captains are all newly promoted and the power levels are showing class base." Antonine nodded, a bit disappointed – even she was getting the _Fuso_ pushed up technology-wise even as the crew was still shaping up, though she didn't quite have an Admiral's knack for part acquisition.

"Manas, you have the conn," she said. "I'm beaming to the station. If I'm not back in time, take us through on the given coordinates." The Reman nodded, and moved to the center of the bridge as she headed off.

Once the Captain was safely off the bridge, Feric added. "You think there's any possibility she's not coming back with the other of her over anyone else?"

"That's not the best to say," Donaldson chided.

"The Admiral's a hero. Having her along saved our butts when we got sent against the Breen," Feric said. "If I had a self that had three extra years of combat experience I didn't have to waste a lot of time explaining a crazy mission to save the Federation, I'd go for it."

That got some nods. "True – who better to trust than one's own reflection?" Manas said.

"That… may not quite be accurate, Commander," Donaldson said. "I've fought the Terran Empire; your reflection is usually the last thing you want to see."

* * *

Antonine materialized directly in front of one of the airlocks linking the promenade with the outer 'rings' of DS9. Captain Kurland was at the replimat, gazing at the temple location with some worry – though that could be his normal expression after the last few years commanding the galaxy's crossroads. The hallways of the promenade were living up to the title, with a dozen familiar species and a hundred she couldn't name offhand.

She started to walk over, but found her path suddenly blocked – a Bajoran, in the robes of one of the low-ranking pryars. The Bajoran was carrying a small box and looked frazzled. "Admiral Revka," he said, with a nervous formality. "I was told to return this to you after your meeting with the Prophets." He looked her over and then blurted. "Twice in one lifetime – the honor, I can't – excuse me. May I survey your _pagh_?"

"What? Yes?" Antonine said, not sure why the Translator had dropped out. "But I think you have the wrong-" She stopped as the pryar reached up and grabbed her ear briefly, before his face fell. He could not have looked more destroyed if she had taken her phaser to him, silhouetted against the wall like – she blinked, and forced her hands to unclench.

Bowing slightly, the pryar mumbled apologies as he moved away. "Are you all right?" Kurland asked, having come up to her.

"What the hell was that?" Antonine asked, and moved over to the shade of the replimat to avoid being quite a distraction.

"It's a Bajoran ritual on the _pagh_ – somewhere between life force and a soul in more general terms, if the UT is carrying that over. Religion always makes the translator temperamental," Kurland commented. "Have you not seen it before?"

"No, I was never posted to Deep Space Nine or Bajor itself – we were able to build a lot more outposts along the Cardassian frontier and _Boudicca_ was usually there," she said, and made sure a chair was behind her to sit. "I've been to member world celebrations and lit the temple offerings two years back home before Q; that was surprisingly personal."

"I've often had new personnel react that way – the Bajoran religion is very tied up to their political system; even given a person's history, the shape and strength of the _pagh_ is an important and objective guide," Kurland said. "Unfortunately, the Prophets seem to be interceding – Admiral Revka's commbadge and Bioscan are not within forty thousand kilometers of the station right now."

"Perfect," Antonine said bitterly, considering other options. If the Celestial Temple wanted her other self out of action, there wasn't anything they could do in an hour, unprepared. "Did she get exchanged for a gift? What did my counterpart donate, I wonder?" Antonine said. "When you had the Jem'hadar attack I'm pretty sure I was wrestling something like a half-sized Rigelian tiger to recover samples on a survey mission, if I've got the time dilations matched." Kurland glanced at her oddly. She shrugged.

"Just because it was peaceful didn't mean _stagnant,_ " she said defensively. She pointed towards the pryar, who was still pacing back and forth nervously, fluttering hands. "The temple seems to be looking for the Admiral as well – do you have that list of alternates then?" She sighed. Having a battle-hardened version of yourself was reassuring.

"Well – we've been cycling through the fleet lately and most ships are on patrol – I think we've got six with the security clearances necessary in range, four with up to date psychological profiles – the other two are _probably_ fine, but their last evaluation was before they got bumped to command," Kurland said. "We'll have to go to my office to check the crew lists; your people may be survivors of this sort of thing, but it's hard to tell in advance."

Antonine held up her hand, and said, "That's frankly immaterial – if they have nervous breakdowns later, at least they'll still exist to have them; we _don't have time_ to pick the best or even best available. My counterpart was a useful shortcut"

Kurland swallowed at that, and then looked at the pryar again, who apparently threw up his hands in frustration and went into the temple. "Okay – maybe Captain Tervan will work – he has some experience – if both of you max out your coils, you can probably get to him in time if nothing disrupted his patrol. He's not the easiest to work with, but he has a good rep from the Iconian War."

"All right, though I wish it wasn't so close – I'll tell the _Fuso_ to prep for quantum slipstream," Antonine said. So much for the omniscience of non-linear beings; she could easily imagine what, say, the Cardassian Union without Federation influence would do the wormhole.

Kurland nodded, and then stopped as a commotion came on the temple steps. The pryar was stumbling backwards, into people who were crossing the promenade, and ignoring all of it, even as he fell. Out from the temple, blinking at the light change, was Admiral Revka; slipping something into a pouch on her uniform belt. Revka saw the two of them and waved briefly. Antonine signaled to her counterpart, whose gaze hardened, but she did another cheery wave and moved to join them, ignoring the pryar.

Antonine looked at her other self, the native of this timeline, and veteran of wars that had not occurred in her timeline. It was an odd thing to look at one's self and see what one would look like in a few years. Stress and death, the workload of fleet staffing, and dozens of battles had aged her other self prematurely, a darkly blood-stained timeline Antoine herself had no relation to. But that history had helped the Federation establish diplomatic ties across the quadrant, encounter new species, and push back the boundaries of possibilities.

"Is it solipsistic to say that I see two of my favorite people are together?" Revka joked briefly. The two exchanged a quick hug.

"It's good to see you, and I wish this was a social call," Antonine said.

"Bad?' Revka asked, quietly.

"From the way it was described; a possible criticality in a major temporal nexus point," Antonine said, "Bad enough they're looking for extra hands from the past."

Revka tapped her communicator. " _Nagato_ , move from yellow to Red Alert status, prepare to clear mooring." After acknowledgement, she asked, "Wouldn't that make the odds worse? Our crews won't be there for the timeline," Revka said. "I know depending on the temporal event the pattern is odd."

Antonine nodded agreement, "When you have time travel, the future can precede the past. But it sounds like the Mirror Universe from our time is involved; probably for a share of the loot."

Revka patted her pocket, "Okay – then I'm glad I was around even if I wish I didn't get how the Terrans think– the Romulans around meant I was going to fake moving the flag to keep an eye on whatever had them worried. Not good enough for the Prophets it seems."

"What did they say?" Kurland asked, "If they're worried, it could be important."

"Where space burns, you must quench the fire," Revka said. The two waited expectantly, and she shrugged. "That's it. I looked into an Orb, got that spoken by Admiral T'Nae, and then was back. Nothing else – subjectively, it took maybe fifteen seconds."

"That was exceptionally non-helpful," Antonine commented.

"Yes, nice of them to take _two hours_ to make sure I was around, apparently," Revka said with a snarl. "We don't have much time – is there a briefing on the other end or are we being dropped into a homeworld assault."

"Sounds like forces are being gathered – no idea how many, but as many as it can, it seems – and it is bad enough Daniels isn't going to be there," Antonine said. She pressed a few buttons and transferred some information. "And so this is going to be a rougher transition than last time; but my engineers think we can take you - I'm sending the probable effects."

Revka looked over the results for a few seconds, scrolling down past the science to the summary of the effects, "Doable, especially with other Starfleet ships in the area– Captain Kurland," and Antonine recognized Revka's 'command voice' – she used it as well. "I'm putting in a formal requisition for all your lateral sensor pallets; standard issue – and anything in spares for ships below ready condition – with luck, we'll bring back enough you can service so the parts depot isn't dry." Kurland nodded.

"All right – let's get our navigation and engineering teams talking – it looks like we have a half-hour left to leave, maybe we can smooth the ride a little," Revka said. She stood, and Antonine followed towards the better beam-out point.

As they left Kurland's earshot, Revka said quietly, "I see you put some work into figuring out how to force a _Galaxy_ through."

"They're the largest ships in terms of cross-section," Antonine said, "And the _Nagato's_ the biggest gun I could expect to find in the Bajor Sector." She sighed, "And I'm scared," she admitted. "You've faced these odds, I'd rather have someone there who knew them. After the Academy, there's no match for our lives. I don't want to face this alone."

Revka patted her shoulder, "Trust me, that just means you're sensible. Stacking the deck is the best form of luck, even when you aren't sure which game."

"So I take it the Prophets handed you an ace?" Antonine asked.

"It's certainly a wild card," Revka said. "If we can figure out how to play it. I'm happier having a pair."

* * *

Antonine stood on her bridge again, and waited for the ship in front of her to light up, thinking again on what her counterpart's ship represented. The clock was counting down, six minutes to null point.

Take an interstellar polity, huge, expanding via diplomacy, and the massive conflicts against an equal power generations removed. Give it technological superiority in its few recent wars, and a certain arrogance. Build massive ships, mobile starbases, capable of anchoring the exploration efforts of entire sectors, full of everything to keep a crew happy on a multi-year mission, with massive advancements almost everywhere but weapons. Leave even more space in the future for more plans to expand, just because you can. Name it, in an act of hubris, the _Galaxy_.

Then run into an enemy, that didn't want planets, that didn't have anger, or fear, or pride driving them – just a hunger for your very superiority and distinctiveness. Lose, badly, fighting – learn how much more there is in dangers, and how far there is to go. Take a look at that extra space – reinforce shield generators, and structural integrity, add more weapon capacitors and nadion generators. Cram even more short-range sensors in for tactical work.

Rebuild your fleet, but face a different enemy, more relatable but equally dangerous. Have a designer point out you don't need all those labs and science sensors and range when you're in a massive fleet. Start some design studies about what to do with that space instead. Win the war, but keep the design studies going. Eventually, reach the point where you can put a starbase weapon on a mobile hull, if you don't mind ripping out everything you designed the _Galaxy_ for. Sure, the mass made it nearly unmaneuverable; but giant gun. And also, it even slowed down construction, since they took half again as many warp coils; a real pain at that size.

That's where it ended in Antonine's timeline. There were a dozen such design concepts – one, she recalled, was designed to detach its saucer permanently to serve as a colony hub for mass-settlement. Here, though, further wars had led to the plans becoming a reality. The gun was certainly big, and technology improvements made the _Yamato_ version, using some of the technology from advances that led to the _Odyssey_ , made the _Nagato_ more maneuverable, and even shrunk the giant gun enough to fit in carrier construction facilities, for more guns.

On the other hand, the _Odyssey_ was massively powerful _and_ a strong exploration vessel. And the _Odyssey_ was still years away in her timeline. And there were normal _Galaxies_ too, upgraded as well, in more than just guns. And her own ship, originating in the future, was clearly built in Starfleet's traditional quad-nacelle, long-range explorer vein.

But sometimes you needed a giant gun. She, Foch, and Revka had torn apart an entire wing of the Breen invasion forces during a temporal jaunt to Earth (it was classified, and complicated) and that was only a few decades different. The time travelers Starfleet had faced were civilian terrorists and pirates. This was a historic battle; whatever amazing capabilities in the future would be matched. If they were to be meatshields, the _Nagato_ would at least help them sell themselves dearly.

" _Nagato_ reports warp injector start – bringing up running lights and cutting from shore power," Manas reported. The ship lit up, running lights touching the registries and the old required red/green to indicate direction if all else failed. The usual grey and blue warp grills, though, were replaced by the high-energy emitters of Iconian-boosted technology. A touch of thruster drifted _Nagato_ clear of the skeletal gantry.

"Move us into position, Donaldson," Revka said, pacing between the control pillars. The burly security officer nodded, and she felt through her boots the infinitesimal quiver in the inertial damping as the _Sagittarius's_ maneuvering thrusters skewed them around before the _Nagato_. Antonine was too much a product of the 25th century to go for a combined weapons/helm position normally, but Donaldson had the best pilot certifications of anyone on board from his old career in the Federation Marshals, before an encounter with an alien singularity projector cost him fifteen years.

"We have linked navigation to _Nagato's_ main bridge; they have unlocked security and slaved their helm controls to ours," Feric said, working the ops pillar. "Remember Sjerd, they've got twice our mass and the flag's a friend of the captain – don't ding their paint, dive into any unnecessary black holes."

"You really want to go into this now, Probationary Lieutenant?" Donaldson asked, "Maybe you should double check your bandwidth – it's pretty clear your first checks aren't up to why a planet would be called Shiva."

Antonine and the other bridge officers didn't bother hiding smiles as Feric made indignant noises. It was an old routine at this point – Feric had been making a dramatic sales presentation of some new technology… and while it had saved Feric, Donaldson (and the investors) the anti-gravity fields the Ferengi had created hadn't saved them fifteen years from the mysterious singularity generators of the cordoned planet.

Fortunately, work-release was working well. She'd wanted Feric, but Donaldson had come to make sure the Ferengi wouldn't kill them all. While he hadn't qualified for starship duty fifteen years ago, attrition meant Lieutenant _Commander_ Donaldson was now the ship's second officer.

"Indulge him, Lieutenant," Antonine directed, "Run pre-transit diagnostic on the temporal core. Commander Donaldson, let's get the _Nagato_ clear, and align us on temporal vector – Commander Manas, confirm the clock."

"Aye, Captain," the Reman said, "Five minutes remaining on Temporal Defense's estimate. Setting course for the 28th century, New Khitomer system. Locking in the core on given coordinates."

"Captain – the pre-ignition routine isn't building power at the rate we've seen on previous transits," Feric said. "No problems showed in the earlier diagnostic with any of the shielding. There's some odd entropy resonances skewing around too."

"Replicate to science's station, Lieutenant," Antonine ordered as she walked beside Manas. At the heart of the display, the repeated signal from New Khitomer's temporal scanner beat – but thready and wide.

"I'm more familiar with subspace, but that looks more like an interference pattern than power loss," she commented. Though unless New Khitomer took more damage than she thought, why have so many signals? What could be blipping so badly? On that thought, her eyes narrowed.

Manas started briefly as he looked up, "Power loss would be my first thought, given the circumstances with the nexus existing _before_ New Khitomer," the Reman admitted. "But my field is more exotic particles, and we're seeing a definite drop in them – that could be due to some scattering, but we have little ability to adjust or read the signal beyond the equipment presets."

"We need maximum aperture," Antonine said, "Try something fast – can you set five minutes farther ahead than the rendezvous?" Manas compiled – much of the pattern suddenly dropped away. The Reman turned to stare at his captain.

"Power gain rate climbing! Chroniton particle now fitting previous patterns," Feric crowed.

"Leave your ear cleaner _off_ next time," Donaldson grumbled.

Antonine shrugged at the liaison officer, "We have someone from our time running the controls on their side– not Daniels. Every time we travel, it leaves a blip on the timeline – there's dozens of ships in Temporal Defense; if they're all hitting the very same spacetime point."

"Then all those ships are technically changing time," Manas rumbled. "A good theory."

"One I'm sure they'll never confirm for us," Antonine said in a very low voice. She stepped back to center. "Ready vortex for maximum aperture – helm, we updated our vector slightly, make sure the _Nagato's_ prepped."

"Aye," Donaldson said, and the deck gave another tiny thump.

Tela's voice came over the intercom. "Engineering here – warp core stable – bringing systems to full power for transit. All capacitors now in series and charging."

"Subspace fields matching," Feric reported. " _Nagato's_ warp signature now matches _Fuso_ – they are raising shields."

"Start the final countdown," Antonine said. Before them, the faint Cherenkov glow of the vortex started to build before them. She signaled all hands. "All hands! Brace for temporal transit."

"Four minutes until null point, fifteen seconds until transfer," Manas said.

"Ten seconds until capacitor dump to core, all systems stable, mark! Nine, eight," Feric continued the countdown.

" _Nagato_ going to full impulse. Estimated clearance after transit at fifty meters," Donaldson said.

"Three, two – mark!" Feric said. Before them, the vortex opened – into 'other', as far as their science could still tell. The eye refused to recognize it. Hopefully, New Khitomer would be there still on the other side.

* * *

 _28_ _th_ _century_

"Transit – three, two – mark!" Donaldson said – and there was the brief period between heartbeats that seemed to go forever and take no time at all. She was almost use to it, but the period after transit still got her. She staggered and nearly fell, her inner ear not quite making the trip. Most of the rest were similarly flummoxed. Even the viewscreen was wracked by static as their sensors recovered.

"Mass readings indicate probable correct location of New Khitomer megastructure. Astrometrics is trying to confirm. Multiple contacts," Manas said, refusing a little think like the violation of spacetime to crack his façade. "IFF beacons indicating Temporal Defense ships. Seeing other Federation ships – two with the Republic; a KDF beaconed ship. Trying to confirm classes."

" _Nagato_ status?" Antonine croaked.

"Short-range sensors clearing, bringing on screen," Manas said. The viewscreen blinked, the sensor artifacts slowly clearing from it. _Nagato_ was behind them, in the grip of eldritch lighting, its shields flickering – but the light from its warp grilles was steady, and the pattern of window lights seemed to be steadying from a frantic Morse.

"Hail coming in Captain," Feric said. "Looks like Temporal Command."

Antonine took a moment to try and straighten her uniform – it still didn't pull right, and the headache was starting. "On screen, then. _Fuso_ responding, Admiral."

"Ah, not yet, my lady!" came back from the viewscreen. Captain Dean Foch, Antonine's oft-partner in time travel was standing there, looking more composed than she liked, and he even gave a jaunty wave. Behind him was some blue-lit conference room, like a museum display of Starfleet uniforms brought to life.

"Admiral Chekov is busy," Foch said, and leaned away to show the maroon-uniformed figure arguing with what looked like representatives of all three powers. "And between us, he may be for some time, but at least you bothered to finally arrive."

"Do we have time?" Antonine interrupted. If Foch was complaining about five minutes, they were either way off or he had screwed up.

"Our estimate, in the heart of power here, is we have four hours before time tries to rebalance. Still, at least you finally showed up, and I see you managed to find some real weight to add to the scales. Once everyone is through shouting, we should have time to cut everyone formal orders for this circus."

"And informal orders?" Antonine asked.

"Get your ships secured from transit and bring yourself and you down as fast as you can," Foch said much more seriously. "This force was never intended to operate as a fleet, half the crews are literally from different decades and aren't worked up, and it _shows_. Maybe we can at least shake everyone into pointing the right direction at the enemy." Foch looked behind him – the yelling was getting louder. "Foch out."

The viewscreen cut, and Antonine started issuing orders. Time it seemed, was in more supply in the future.

 _Four hours (estimated) until Ragnarok_

* * *

End chapter 1


	2. The Knight

At the Jaws of Fenrir:

Chapter 2: The Knight

By tremor3258

A Retelling of the 'Ragnarok' mission

* * *

 _2411 AD_

"Ah, the shining opportunities and outposts of future technology," Tarsi zh'Shela of Andor said, in the copilot seat. "Think we'll ever get to see them?" That got some nervous chuckles, but not too much – it was hitting too close to home. The space was too tight as well, but the old Type F shuttles hadn't been designed to carry eight and a load of cargo as well.

Captain Dean Foch, official Starfleet hero and Federation martyr, hunched over the helm controls and tried not to accidentally jab Tarsi in the elbow. He certainly wasn't feeling cutting edge, either – the disruptor induction coils they were carrying were a design older than any of their actual birthdates, not what their doctored records said.

They were absolutely huge for something intended for ground even by Foch's only rough engineering background. But for a third-rate weapons auction, they were just the thing to sell to planets that had just cracked the light barrier and found there were not only people out in the stars, but a lot of them were better than you at killing things.

And it did help to look the part, which was why there literally wasn't a Starfleet uniform within four light years. Tarsi had found some smoked-glass eyepiece and even some hat from a period drama out of ship stores. Poor 218 had corpselike makeup on a bunch of metal piping glued on. Ex-Borgs were just common enough to be distinctive; and no one tended to look past for any other details. Skarvin had found the traditional silver piping and bright fabric of a Tellarite engaged in mercantile negotiations – and it fit so well Foch strongly suspected it had come out of his engineer's own closet. T'met had kept it simple – the heavy quilted fabrics often favored by Romulans; and a few not-quite-discretely hidden tokens to indicate ex-Tal Shiar. Foch had tried to work on her expression, but the stoic Vulcan just couldn't sneer enough.

Foch was going the traditional hard-wearing animal-skin analogues of a mercenary who needed something that could look dashing even if one hadn't seen a shower in a week. Leather jackets and heavy cloth also were flexible enough for phaser combat, while giving some resistance in hand-to-hand. It also just said 'human' not necessarily 'Starfleet'.

And, vaunted, unprecedented impossible Khitomer Alliance aside, this was no place for Starfleet. Not that it was stopping Foch; between the transwarp and temporal technology, this far side of the Romulan/Klingon frontier took as much effort to reach as buying a ticket on the White Star line between Andoria and Earth had in his original time. But one of the House-owned stations supporting KDF listening posts was a terrible place to pull up in a Federation-flagged battlecruiser.

So _Roland_ was six light years away, systems on standby, shedding a blend of chroniton and tachyon particles in case the emission nebula it was near was not enough. Lieutenant Newness, Weapons Officer and Tarsi's second in that department was managing the store. Foch had no worries there; Aaron was the most calm and focused person he'd ever met behind a gunnery console. Even temporal displacement hadn't wrecked his calm, versus just about everyone else.

The tiny shuttle _Yvon_ had been rescued by Daniels off the dear old _Conestoga-_ class _Pioneer_ , but was an old enough model to have drifted into civilian use in the current day. Of course, its cutting edge short-range warp pods had been replaced by _modern_ cutting edge engine modules off a _Peregrine_ fighters, but Foch preferred to keep that detail irrelevant.

Hopefully, the mission would allow it. Temporal Defense had picked up something they insisted as referring to as a 'blip', apparently – or rather, Temporal Defense's cautiously allied downtime counterparts. This was a Daniels mission; which meant the objectives being sought often weren't simply the same as truly corrective action, unfortunately. And Daniels as usual seemed to be ignoring the rest of the hard-won Iconian Alliance, which is why someone

"You could be stuck with our poor friend Captain Revka on some backwater Gorn world hundreds of years ago, hoping not to get your throat ripped out for being a foreigner and trying not to get shot by an assassin that may or may not exist," Foch said aloud, partially reminding himself. "We should get shot in the front, and of course, weapons are not permitted at the auction itself." They all laughed at that.

Revka and he had the 'fortune', along with their crews, of being the most experienced at dealing with Daniels and his twisted missions. But when the possibility of an attempt to remove the Gorn ambassador to the Klingon Empire from history arose at the same time, they'd split up. Captain Revka, from an alternate version of the current time, was from a time when an alien planet was a week away, and had better first contact and alien societal training. Foch was pretty good at punching Klingons, in his own humble estimation, so they'd split the tasks thusly.

"Oh, 718," Foch said, "As a reminder – I'm not sure what the Klingons were like in your time or how much contact you had – the Klingon Empire relies on an honor framework for its societal controls and justification for military control; but its leadership has always been pragmatic. Expect security to be open to bribes, especially at a quiet post like this."

The cybernetically enhanced officer nodded, and scratched his head. The fake Borg prosthetics, despite their best efforts, were apparently still itching.

"Yes, apparently Klingon Intelligence regularly shares their material from these stations to us – there is a host of minor infractions indicating lax oversight or poor leadership. _Republic_ security seems more thorough in this zone, but the Republic's continued limitations prevent a sufficient large patrol force to prevent all such forces from moving through their space, though it seems Republic colonies are no longer 'easy pickings'," the science officer explained.

"Good for them," Foch said. "But this isn't a Klingon house planning for the next round of civil war, yes? Some minor power."

"Yes, the Atodes – achieved warp power three decades ago. They were closer to the Klingon sphere of influence than the Romulans, but the Star Empire's repeated issues has kept the Klingons focused on their larger neighbor," 718 reported.

"Just waiting for the Klingons to pick them off," Tarsi said grimly. That never seemed to change.

"Correct, given Jm'pok's reputation as a military commander, but the general war exhaustion from the Iconian War, the Federation Diplomatic Corps has the Atodes at an estimated ninety-five percent chance of being the next victim of 'military demonstrations' into throwing fealty to the Empire. At least some political factions seem to be feeding weapons technology to destabilize their current social structure to make assimilation easier," 718 said.

"Never mess with the classics, it seems," Foch said. "A bunch of minor powers – whatever happens must be far in the future – some future dignitary or descendant, then, so everyone must be worth protecting. Everyone's got their fancy chroniton webs polarized and on passive?" The crew nodded – Skarvin cursing as he bumped a support overhang for the small transporter. The fanciful gear gave some passive ability to receive messages, worn next to the skin. Testing had mixed results in the past, though.

"All right, _Roland_ should be able to ping us using them as well," Foch said, "And _Yvon_ 's got a transporter crammed into her now – sorry Skarvin." The Tellarite growled, high in the throat. "So we've got that for backup. Warping out now." Foch tapped the throttle down with familiar practice, though the sound of the new pods cutting out was still unfamiliar.

Before them through the windshield, and in far more detail on the scanner screen, stood a small Klingon outpost. Its proud green hull metal had worn to a dull green, time claiming from everyone. Originally built to serve as a resupply point for Klingon fleets going into grand adventures into Romulan space; time had brought the universe closer together until it was too close to the border, and too small, to support full KDF fleets on the warpath. The Council had sold it off to one of the smaller Klingon Houses, helping one of the less military Houses fill its defense commitments by maintaining the station.

Now it was just one of dozens of transshipment stations supporting hundreds of listening and observation posts along the legal border demarcation; each of those supporting dozens of unmanned satellites. To the privateers and adventurers who used it, it was just another tired old station, its grander history ignored.

Station DR-3335 knew its business though; the weapon satellites surrounding it, and the heavy turrets on the station itself made it immune to the threat of a true pirate in an upgunned freighter – and the tachyon grid shining on their sensors showed it was protected against the more likely threat; a squadron of raiders from a rival House. Even a heavy cruiser on its own would probably be unable to cripple the station, hence the subtle approach they were here to counter.

Tarsi was checking the sensor hood for more detail, and then gave a low whistle. Pressing a few buttons, she swapped the scanner over to a tactical view of the area. That got a whistle out of everyone but T'met, naturally, though 718's sounded like data over voice line, in Foch's opinion.

"Fascinating," the Vulcan biologist said, keeping calm. "I would never anticipate that a relatively minor technic civilization would have the available assets or easily transportable resources to attract so many ships." Orbiting uneasily beyond the weapons platforms were at least a dozen full starships and another two dozen freighters – Foch nearly went for a scan to see how many shuttles the station was holding but stopped himself. This was not the place for Starfleet nosiness.

It was a stunning statement of diversity – Foch counted what looked like an old Risan courier busy keeping the station between itself and a pair of battered old Marauders. A few of the many Voth _Palisades_ captured in the Sphere that had seen better days hung around – even Foch could tell their impulse units had been swapped for commercial models, and he was no engineer. A couple sleek destroyers or escorts of uncertain origin were keeping every sensor short of disruptor lock on each other.

"I think it's a real sign how the mercenary and secondhand weapon markets have been drying up the last few months, no?" Foch said, adjusting the scanner to focus. "See – behind the _Nandi_ Daniels _did_ say would be here for the Atodes – I'd swear that's a Xindi bugship and they're closer to Bajor than here." Sure enough, one of the claw-shaped Insectoid vessels, dread specter of many an Academy simulation, was resting a discrete distance away from the ships crowding the approach orbits.

"I guess people realize the Iconians are gone, finally – glad we missed that one," Tarsi said. "But I can't believe the Xindi would wander this far from home."

Skarvin said argumentatively, "I'm _sure_ that's one of their heavy combatants. I remember seeing in those briefing tapes that the Xindi sent a rep to the Khitomer Accord resigning. From one planet killer to another, eh?"

"Now there's a part of history no one wants to repeat. Hopefully this won't be a heavy combat mission. If the Xindi are being friendly to the Federation, I'd hate to ruin it." Foch said. "Let's let them all know we're here, eh?" He quickly thumbed the comm switch.

"Calling Base DR-3335, this is shuttle _Galahad_ carrying cargo and personnel. Transmitting our credentials on associated frequency," he said.

The growling voice that came back had seen too many stimulants and not enough sleep; or was ethnically Klingon. "This is Flight Control. Shuttle _Galahad_ map to our navigation control for final approach. You have been slotted in Shuttlebay Three. The, 'reception' will be held in an hour." The voice paused, then gloating, "Cargo handling fees have been increased twenty percent due to heavy traffic."

Foch paused a second to adjust his throat for the right blend of weariness. "Understood flight control."

"If he was looking for a fight, that was a pretty poor attempt," Skarvin, an acknowledged master, noted.

"I think he'd rather shoot down half of what's flying out here," Foch observed. "So that was playing nice."

718 noted, "Passive thermal readings on the subspace and E/M antennae intercoolers indicate a vast amount of short-range tightbeam communication going on between the station and ships. Energy modulation on the long-range indicate a vast amount of traffic going out over the Empire's deep-space communication net."

"Poor Klingon," Tarsi said without sympathy. "All these honorless dogs and having to listen to them talk."

"Remember everyone – it's their turf. We're not here to clean their house. If the Atodes see everything with the Klingons and still decide to provoke them, that's their problem today," Foch said with a sigh. "And tomorrow, and probably for years the way the Empire keeps lumbering on. So let's not confront all their stupidity and just let it glide, eh?" There were noises of agreement as, for demonstration, Foch removed his hands from the controls as the Klingon station took over, the shuttle gliding into the station's maw.

* * *

 _Yvon/Galahad_ glided into the bay, settling with a crunch as the Klingon pilot set it down hard on the skids. "Blasted idiots in any century. No appreciation for equipment, or maintenance. Oh, the tolerances say it can take at 15 meters per second, so 14.9 we will," Skarvin grumbled.

"And, they're pressurizing the bay," Tarsi said drily. Skarvin folded his arms and his jaw shut with an audible click as the atmosphere filled enough to start carrying sound.

"Ca – er, Dean," Tarsi said, "We're getting multiple intrusion attempts at our data tapes," Tarsi said from the second console. "Alternate overlays on our circuits – probably quantum induction through the floor of the bay and the engine diagnostic circuits."

"Good thing we wiped the core, yes?" Foch said. "Probable from the Klingons?"

Tarsi was one of the best information warfare specialists he knew, certainly one of the best in the Federation. Combine that with the rage of an Andorian pulled from her family, and it gave one a real passion for insight into the Klingon psyche.

"No," she said, "If the Klingon officials wanted our tapes, they'd just come in with disruptors and breach – we couldn't escape their tractors. This is deniable, no down side, but possible profits."

"Daimon Leng, then," T'met said. "He could easily divert attention to some Klingon faction if he was detected, keep his hands clear, and possibly make even more than his finder's fee. A well-played scheme with no downside, to Ferengi methodology."

"Or someone using Ferengi thinking as a cut-out for their own plans," Skarvin argued. "History's in the balance _somehow_ here."

"Regardless, I suppose it would be polite to ignore it unless we can backtrace it for the moment. We're here to make a sale from our latest scavenging, not try and beat Ferengi Alliance technology," Foch said. He flipped on the comm switch. "Control, we read pressurization as nearly complete – where is the station factor?"

"A representative will be with you shortly," came back the curt reply before the channel cut again.

"Q'plah," Foch said to the dead mike, slightly amused.

* * *

Somewhat to Foch's surprise, the factor who greeted them was actually one of the Atodes themselves. Foch's mental file for the species was piscine but they were apparently primarily arboreal amphibians, from the briefing. Still, bulging eyes without visible lids did sort of always make him think fish. The crew had warily disembarked around the side hatch.

But, the man knew his business, and had one of the Ferengi's top-of-the-line tricorders (you could tell by the gilding). "Greetings, merchant," the factor said. "I am Representative Gr'mall. The Atodes Supremacy put out the initial call for equipment; all items submitted for the auction must be registered and will be placed in bond with the Ferengi Alliance."

Foch reached out for a hearty handshake. Atodes did not do that; but it wasn't a well-known fact, the handclasp being one of those nigh-universal bipedal gestures. The Representative was willing to cross bounds of his own species decorum, and took it. "Captain Fract," Foch lied cheerfully. "Got a load of just the sort of material that a wise and discerning customer could use to keep their orbitals safe. Seven of Eight, Tervi, hit the rear hatch."

He gestured, obligingly, letting the factor go first. The Andorian and non-Borg moved into position. With a quick gasp for the seal releasing, and the slow hum of hydraulics, the rear cargo hatch on _Yvon_ settled to the floor. Foch gave it a bit of a flourish.

Gr'mall didn't give it much of a glance, keeping his attention on his tricorder. "No explosive compounds, no advanced isolinear chips, no high-density transtators," the factor observed. "Tubes? Osmium tubes?"

"Partially osmium – picked for its high-temperature and durability," Foch said smoothly. "You're not seeing the whole unit – getting this quality of alloy throughout takes specialty equipment, but targeting equipment? Cooling pumps? Gunbarrels? Easy enough."

"This is a weapon?" Gr'mall said, looking at it. "Some kind of bomb?"

"Oh, no – far, far better," Foch said – Skarvin had given him the specs. "A planetary defense disruptor primary inductor coils! Sure, they're bigger than the starship model, but when you have a planet, you don't have to build so compact – or have it run so hot you have to use dangerously caustic coolants. It's reliable, easy to maintain, hits out to a light second, and – and your ecosystem will appreciate this – it can be water cooled. The coil design is complicated enough it can set up a light disruptor effect for point defense or a larger charge for anti-ship work."

"Is their origin available? The Supremacy is not inclined to have the charge of weapon smuggling lodged to it by other powers," Gr'mall asked.

"No, the colony was put up for general salvage rights," Foch assured. "No one was around to contest it anymore, but going by the official battle record and the debris in orbit, they took at least two Raiders on their own before they were overwhelmed by ground troops. Just because it's easier to build doesn't mean it's useless, no matter what the Q'onos shipyards try to sell you."

Gr'mall pulled his tricorder in close, examining them more closely. "And they are undamaged, then, or require some sort of refit?" he said, with a trace of eagerness.

"You'll need to work with your military to install them, of course, but it's a similar system to most Dominion War-era rifles," Foch said, assuming. "Just…" and he dropped his voice. "Much." And he leaned in, brushing the ends of his neat mustache carelessly. "Much…."

"Yes?" Gr'mall asked, insistent.

"Bigger," Foch said, quietly and assured. Gr'mall gave a low, burbling whistle.

"We'll get this moved to safe storage," Gr'mall assured. He tapped a communicator and started instructions for anti-grav tractors, the voice on the other side low and clicking. Muscle of some kind, Foch presumed.

That finished, Gr'mall turned, a terrifyingly broad smile on his face. "For the honored guests and vendors to the Supremacy, as the principal host of this auction, we have provided refreshments and entertainment on C deck. Bids will be held in custody of Daimon Leng, per previous instructions, and be payable in a variety of currencies. The auction itself will, by necessity of size, be remote, but all information will be available for perusal. We ask that all transactions be included in the auction."

"Thank you, Representative Gr'mall," Foch said politely. "We will keep your points in mind."

* * *

C Deck was literally every dive bar in a border outpost Foch had seen, in the 23rd or the 25th century. Even the best Klingon approaches to lack of creature comforts didn't have much effect on a port bar. Apparently, rapid inebriation among spacers was one of those ergonomic problems with a universal solution.

Though since it was a Klingon bar, the lighting was darker and the décor certainly greener than normal on Foch's side of the line. He paused briefly to peer at the dealers working a pair of tongo tables. _Definitely_ greener decor.

The Orion dealers were imports, it seemed, for the occasion. If the Syndicate was running gambling out of the base, they'd have brought some of their own walking slabs, but Foch didn't see any of the big Orion males around. Actually, even most of the eye candy, of both sexes, were Klingon, but they were a slim majority in the crowd. It was a galactic mishmash. Ferengi, of course, mainly in a cluster under a set of holograms showing various death-dealers. Atodes were in evidence, talking with as many as groups as possible. Nausicaans were around, of course, guns attracting them like bees to honey.

But those were all to be expected. One group, though not the largest made up for it in surprise and density. "Looks like it was a bugship, eh 'Tervi'" Skarvin said under his breath. Tarsi merely whistled in response. Crowding the bar was the most Xindi-Insectoid Foch had seen outside of a history book. Even given their spindly bodies, they were packed in tight. They were certainly keeping the one-armed bartender busy pulling a spectrum of liquors off the top shelf.

Foch, and his crew, had to stop and stare at the spectacle. Even with time travel, this was history come to life.

Most of them. T'met had the presence of mind to give a warning. "Captain Fracht, we are attracting attention from the Ferengi contingent. One is coming over, and two Nausicaans just stopped playing tongo." Foch nodded, briefly, glancing. A portly Ferengi was coming over, and his broad frame was well ornamented.

"Wow, a whole set of Coalition members, down to an extra humon," said the Ferengi, with some cheerfulness. Well, Leng knew his Romulans if he picked T'met out with a glance. "I'm sure an expert salvager is familiar with the Rules of Acquisition – but let's give Rule 35 the weight over Rule 34 today, eh? Weapons are here to be sold, not used."

Foch turned, faked being startled, and held a hand up to be shook, which was taken, but with a firm grasp at the wrist to be rocked. The shorter Ferengi had some experience with Klingon handshakes. "Daimon Leng – Captain Fracht. We're here to make money, Daimon, I assure you, not dredge up ancient history," Foch said.

"Excellent, humon," Leng said brightly. "Please, avail yourself of refreshments – the Supremacy is covering fifty percent of the tab as part of this remarkable business opportunity."

"Do they know that?" Tarsi asked.

Leng smiled, showing a lot of peg teeth. _Definitely_ an expert on the Klingon side of things. "Of course, Leng Enterprises is fully bonded, and makes it a point to encourage repeat business; clarity is key. We advised them it would help facilitate their auction, especially as it is being held off their world on a more accessible friendly power, with less, ah, fallout at home should there be any incidents."

"And it allows you to handle transportation of items that may be too delicate given the Atodes experience," Foch said politely. Leng nodded happily, the smile of a Ferengi who was getting his percentage at each stage in a transaction.

718 said, "It is well your experience is available – I can see the listings and I assume the Xindi are the supplies of lot 48; fifteen tons of keomcite."

"Very astute shopper! But, yes, I had my people check. It is low-grade, low-grade," Leng assured. "Very popular in doping emitters these days, I understand, without being so historically destructive. Several other interesting minor artifacts and Xindi technical bits as well. They were willing to put up a hatchery, but the Atodes' homeworld is apparently too cold for them to thrive."

"Shame, an auction this size; the Atodes may need the troops for the guns," Foch said.

"Trainers too," Leng said absently, "But knowledge is always more expensive than things, and the Atodes are looking for bulk goods, mainly."

"And guns are easier to resale later than knowledge?" T'met asked. "Or medical supplies which can decay."

Leng sighed. "A full strategic command encrypted communications suite would see a lot more usefulness against a cloaked raid of course. But the Empire knows this as well. Guns? Those are easy, but a decent command/control – that would make conquest a slog. Not much glory in getting lured into free-fire zones and pre-sighted artillery."

Foch said, trying to be disappointed, "So I assume expert trainers are…."

"Way out of the Supremacy's price range, sadly," Leng said with a sad shrug. "They've been decent customers. Losing their pearl beds for more gagh-breeding pits will be a pity on an overloaded market." From Leng's glance, T'met and Tarsi, by Foch's shoulder, were giving some sort of look. He shrugged. "I try not to account for human capital when I have no hand in the market," Leng said softly, and a bit sadly. Contrary to the Federation's popular view, Ferengi had consciences – at least ones with well-established businesses.

"Thank you, Daimon, we'll keep in mind the Empire's generosity as a host has certain caveats," Foch promised. "We'll try to not to sign any employment contracts that may give them some teeth." Leng smiled with some of his own, and with a Ferengi bow, went to other guests arriving via turbolifts from the other bays.

"Spread out, get some info," Foch said. "See what everything's selling – what may be worth buying, especially anything easily transportable or unique." The others nodded, and started to move out.

* * *

Half an hour later, Foch and his team hadn't spotted anything suspicious. Even the drinks weren't being watered. It seemed a perfectly grey-market auction. The Klingons were getting rid of materiel they couldn't use quite yet, and an exact idea of what defenses they would face over Atodes. And if they didn't have it, Leng would sell it to them. As far as Foch had gathered, he was collecting at least a finder's fee at every stage in the process.

That was perfectly normal Ferengi behavior, though the merchant kings Foch had met on the stations in the slower-warp era with that sort of skill at having their fingers in every pie didn't have the network to attract this many suppliers for the auction. Either Leng was _really_ on his way up, and this was his coming out party, or he had a backer way up the power structure of either the Republic or the Empire.

But that was immaterial to the mission, but the best Foch had to chew on at the moment. Unless a dramatic appearance of some Klingon warlord to gobble up the Atodes now was in the forecast, Foch couldn't see anything obvious someone trying to change history would _do_ here, but it was the best he had to go on.

At least his crew was picking up some useful items for _regular_ Starfleet and Federation Intelligence. Time seemed to be sadly normal, but as Leng had noted, knowledge was valuable, could come in small packages, and often be more effective than a shuttle full of guns. In this age of transwarp and cloaking devices, it was after a time of miracles. In the age when a Klingon bar had a passable brandy, surely something could be done.

At the moment, he was near the tongo tables, listening to the insectoids. A group of well-decorated Klingons (and a Gorn – Foch still couldn't believe they had given up) had appropriated the bar area a few minutes ago, and the Xindi had moved over to watch the auctions and brag about how much better pilots they were than each other. It seemed, given the lifespan, a fighter pilot on their ship was moving to flight ops and there was some good natured posturing going on.

"My sire improved the starburst maneuver within forty-two seconds against the freighter _Fortune Maru_ , I have triumphed by .5 over that-"

"My path as next squadron leader is justified, as I completed the Arcturus Rally course under the eyes of our commander using two percent less thruster fuel than anyone else on the _Mchwa-_ "

And so on. Smiling and nodding along was a good excuse to keep a PADD out and take notes of everything else going on. They spoke so quickly and relied on motion cues the Universal Translator's audio-overlay couldn't handle. One had to 'read' a conversation with the Insectoids. These Insectoids had been around the block, and understood anyone talking with them was, by nature, distracted by their limited communication apparatus.

Even good brandy hadn't distracted Foch from an interesting bit of timing. Since the Xindi got pushed from the bar, absolutely no new blocks had been entered into the auction, and the rate of bid entries had started to increase. Perhaps some warlord had arrived, but Foch couldn't see what was going on.

There were a few baubles, but most items that weren't being stored in the cargo bays were simple hand weapon examples, power packs carefully removed. The tide of history was going to the removal of another aligned world into a subject of the Klingon Empire, and Foch couldn't see how it could be stemmed here.

The last lot that had been entered had been a dozen plasma torpedoes, suitable for satellites in the current era. But those would have taken processing; Foch wasn't sure they were the actual last lot even if there hadn't been some manipulation. Before he'd taken up life in the future, as a junior ensign, Foch had been part of a task force against a Romulan investiture; the deadly orbs strung out in a chain from low orbit had kept five Starfleet ships at bay until the _Exeter_ had managed to spoof their targeting into each other.

"Republic Intelligence is laying a cover trail; they brought some goods that will excuse a bidding frenzy, and make sure they're scattered across the sector" Foch heard in his ear, a rich female voice that promised perfect confidence and hinted at possibilities that made his knees quiver. He looked around, but he wasn't close enough to the tongo table for one of the Orions to have spoken, even if the sentence made sense.

"If I didn't worry about this 'Temporal Defense' cabal I wouldn't be here, would I?" came the voice again. Foch stood up, walking over towards T'met who was standing under one of the auction screens, making the occasional bid for show and struggling to look haughty and Romulan. At least, those were her orders. Right now she was looking about as worried as a Vulcan could.

Foch slid in close and stabbed a bit at whatever was on screen. "You can't ponder these too long," he advised.

"Patience my friend" counselled the voice.

T'met blinked. "Captain, I appear to be suffering from auditory hallucinations," the Vulcan said quietly.

"I seem to be suffering the same," Foch said. There was a brief commotion near the entrance. Several Romulans in mixed apparel had shown up, as predicted. "They seem to be accurate ones, though."

"Yes," T'met said, and closed her eyes. "I believe I have encountered the voice before, but there is some distortion, though I cannot say where from. It does not seem to have a telepathic component." The two winced as there seemed a brief squeal, like a data burst.

"Like from a communicator? Something subcutaneous?" Foch asked. Foch felt along his arms, but there were no tears as if he had a dart or the like injected. He tapped along his jaw line and paused. "Or what if we're picking up someone else's broadcast?" He traced, surreptitiously as he could manage, along the line of crystals built into his jacket.

"I would talk to Seven of Eight, sir," T'met said. "Logic would indicate, that a receiver could pick up messages from other transmitters."

"All right, go chat with the Romulans and see if they are up to something, just on principle. I'll check with the others," Foch directed. "See if you can find a source; there weren't many orbital defense satellites left lying around and inactive after the Iconian War." T'met nodded, briefly.

"Oh, I'm sure Temporal Defense is here," the voice said casually. Foch sighed, briefly, covered by the noise of the party.

* * *

718 was on the other side of the bar – from his position, he could see everything. And given his memory capacity, they could reconstruct from lip reading and ambient sound almost everything going on in the room. Foch was lucky to have him – for away missions, invaluable, as a science officer, incredible. As a conversationalist: minimal.

"I was able to hear several elements of what you did, Captain," 718 confirmed. "However without an exact recording of what you and T'met heard, I do not believe a simple recounting would be sufficient to triangulate. We must be very close to the origin point of the transmission to detect it."

"Really?" Foch asked dubiously. 718 had survived the death of his ship in an alternate reality the same way the _Conestoga's_ survivors had; the wildest of flukes courtesy of a temporal agent. He was also a being out of time, and while he was a brilliant analyst of data, his judgements on what data technology could gather had to be taken with a grain of salt still.

"Yes," 718 said firmly. "The likelihood of a beam intersecting our moment in spacetime without it having to propagate out of the timestream to normal space is infinitesimal. One end of the conversation must be taking place nearby; we are probably hearing the transmission signal as we are only getting one half. I would give ninety-three percent chance it is on the station"

"All right, I assume with all these sticky fingers and ne'er do wells around, you haven't managed to access their security system, with everything on alert?" Foch said. 718 nodded. "Okay, how's your wireless into their environmental and fire suppression alerts?" Foch presented a PADD, anticipatory.

"Excellent, captain," 718 said quietly. "Status repeaters indicate eighty percent of inhabitable space is in common use, sixty percent in current use. A test sweep on infrared on the fire suppression, cross-referenced gave a set of heat sources in the common range for sentient life. I do not believe I have eliminated all targs; their mass is sufficiently high for false positives on such a passive scan."

Foch nodded, and was surprised when 718 volunteered. "Besides the obvious security precautions for the large number of visitors – there appears to be a false connection stream set by an induction-based intrusion package in one or both of the tongo platforms." Foch turned to look – the gambling wheels were definitely keeping spinning as the room had filled up. Tarsi and Skarvin were in the crowd there.

"Leng really does have all the angles covered," Foch murmured with some appreciation. He studied the inhabited spaces briefly, flipping through the levels on the simple 2d display. "There," he said. At 718's questioning look, Foch explained, "The same level as shuttlebays and transporter rooms, yes, and a level below the command center. Easy access, but can be secured if necessary – good for a visiting functionary, when tomorrow's enemy is today's friend, here in the Empire."

"That is four levels above us," 718 observed, "There are security stations on two of them and this room is monitored." Foch looked at his officer disapprovingly. "It was merely an observation of the difficulties, not a judgement of our capabilities."

"This many people, security is waiting for the obvious," Foch said, "Did Tarsi ever tell you what we pulled on Gamma Vega?" 718 nodded. "Then you know what to expect," Foch said, as he left to talk to Tarsi and Skarvin.

* * *

True enough, the two were in the middle of the gambling section. From the azure flush to Tarsi's face, she was definitely going for the adrenaline high, and was cheerfully slinging latinum back and forth across the table. Skarvin looked much more terse and drawn, but the chip pile, by Foch's estimation, in front of him would have a Rigelian trader ready to offer up his whole family. Their old poker one-two routine seemed to work well for tongo. He did have to wonder where they'd had time to pick up the game.

Foch slid in behind them. "Freshen your drinks?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm going to be back on a hot streak any second, Captain," Tarsi assured him, watching the wheel spin.

"Permission to sell our Andorian, Captain?" Skarvin said dourly. "Get my retirement fund back, or at least an impulse engine." He turned and winked slowly.

"Aw Captain," Tarsi said with a fake whine.

"No, the slave market in the Empire's really dried up," Foch said with some regret. "Besides, she's got our uses? Remember Gamma Vega?"

"Only when it's cold," Skarvin said, and his eyes glanced towards the wall. Following, Foch saw an access panel set flush, nearly invisible. With the extra light from the tongo tables, it was more in shadow than a paranoid Klingon would perhaps like.

Tarsi stood up as the tongo board came to a stop, and pouted as apparently it was a poor combination. She grabbed a drink as she stood and casually slung chips at one of the Gorn also at the table. Trying to set her drink down, she slipped, pulling on the sleeve of a Klingon technician at the table – the sleeve snagged on something underneath and tore, revealing some combination of metal and plastics.

"A scrambler?" Skarvin said, angry but without surprise. "You lowborn filth?" He picked his glass up and threw it at the technician, as Foch slid quietly away from the two. He paused briefly at the panel, and looked back. As expected, his officers were giving better than they got, and it looked like things were headed downhill quickly as T'met entered and began disabling opponents with Vulcan efficiency. That apparently struck the station crew as unfair and they entered in full.

It was an access shaft, discrete but intended for personnel to reach conduits, not so security could get an end-run, and it took only a little coaxing to find the releases. He scooted into the access path and closed the panel behind him. The thought of conduits made him pause, and he looked around. Engineering wasn't his forte, but he could work a valve. An EPS was an EPS tap, and he'd seen the power cables on the tongo tables.

He found the power regulator and turned it up as far as the lines would bear. A little extra distraction never hurt, and a power surge through those tongo tables would, from what 718 said, alert whatever security wasn't already headed to the meeting hall. A blast of signal noise right into the station's main computer should stir anyone who was still at their monitor stations when an opportunity to knock heads presented itself.

* * *

The distraction had worked, or the fight had taken on a life of its own. From the fire alarm he heard echoing when he'd dropped to the second level, Foch guessed the latter. He'd had to cut a few alarms on the way down; which would have alerted if anyone still cared, and he was pretty sure he'd tripped at least one monitor when slipping a deck. There were limits one could do against modern technology when you couldn't bring powered equipment.

He'd made it, however. If his Klingon was still good, he was on the right deck and above the compartment in question. He did have a knife ready and was working with an unpowered multi-tool on a dogged-down access panel. No one had accosted him or shot at him yet, so it seemed things were working, though he regretted not having the opportunity to pick up a gun.

There were too forms of non-detection; one where you were as quiet as possible, and anything could give you away – or create so much chaos that they couldn't identify you. Something was going on, but it would be impossible to focus on one thing.

His communicator net crackled in his ear again. "This should be simple for you – activity's picked up here, as anticipated. As I've said before, no need to have everything mapped, simply put enough factors together and let nature take it. What do they teach uptime?" said the same voice as before. Foch did have to acknowledge chaos went both ways.

Regardless of how it was being hid, this was clearly some form of time travel. He was dead once before, and his crew also had the command codes that would send alerts up and down the whole Alliance, regardless of the loyalty of the station's commander.

"Yes – but let us be straight, is White Widow a go?" asked the voice again.

 _That_ _does not sound good_ , Foch thought to himself. And resigning himself, he stopped trying to be subtle on the last lock and wrenched upward on the thin paneling. The metal screeched and bent, but moved sufficiently. There was a startled noise. Underneath was the thinner metal lining of the actual habitat module; inserted within the station's framework. This he simply kicked and then rolled out of the way; his paranoia rewarded with the flashing sizzle of the dire red of an antiproton bolt, sawing through the air.

Well, that proved whoever was down there had connections. Lacking anything stronger, Foch tossed the multitool down to the floor with a clatter. He waited a beat and followed through, landing into a crouch on the floor below. Expecting the grenade Foch wished he had, the inhabitant had ducked behind a heavy metal slab of a bed.

The room was lit a dusky red, and the air heavy. It was the usual utilitarian of KDF quarters, except for an odd crystal and glass stand, something like a vase opened at both ends. A wispy hologram hung in the air above it; there was possibly a figure in it, but Foch could make out no features. He had no time anyway – as what _was_ clear on the display were the silhouettes of what looked like the proper timeships of the 29th century.

He leapt onto the bed, a front kick meeting the rising metal cube of a gun as the woman there rose out of her own crouch. Definitely high-ranking by the insignia on the baldric, but Foch had no time to run a biometric scan, and if there was some attack on the timeline's future peacekeepers, he could not be gentle or wait. He drew the knife at his belt.

Klingons' anatomy was one of the reasons for their overbuilt melee weaponry, but if one was careful, there were still a few places one could hit and temporarily cripple. Foch found his mark and plunged the knife. Simple weapon though it was, the blade edge had been honed enough that the heavy leathers weren't much opposition.

Somehow, the woman reached up, lashing with a palm strike to his chest that sent him stumbling backwards. He coughed, his vision suddenly, swimming, but he could see the flash of green when the woman arose – Orion, not Klingon. And he'd gotten into pheromone range. Foch coughed, falling backwards, stumbling off the edge of the bed.

"Going for the secondary nerve cluster?" the melodious voice said. "For an assassin you are well-skilled, but I think you were looking for someone else." There was a grunt, and Foch could see the flash of silver, smeared with green – she had withdrawn the knife.

Gasping, Foch struggled back to his knees, bringing his guard back up, and slapped the panic button on the passive net he was wearing. If it worked as intended, _Roland_ would be approaching in several minutes. "I don't know who I was looking for, but I think I'm at the right time."

The hologram spoke, "Incorrect – I can see his signature; this is one of Daniel's tools, General."

"Daniel's really?" the Orion said. She was applying pressure to her side. "Actually, I know this one – he's a pawn, not a tool – isn't that right Captain Foch?" Her voice was full of surprise, though Foch had no idea, with his head swimming, how much to believe of an Orion Matron's voice.

With a feeling of tremendous pressure being lifted, Foch's vision started to clear. The Orion's pheromone control was excellent, and to his own surprise, he saw, drawn into something of a pout of surprise, the face of a Dahar Master he had worked with before. D'ellian of M'ara was a hero, and –

"You're no traitor or fool, to risk time," Foch finished out loud, struggling to stand. The Orion had fought with him and Captain Revka in an alternate universe, a raid to save a strange, bright, version of his own time from the Sphere Builders, and gather valuable information on their operations. As a Klingon not of Klingon, she had been recommended by their counterparts in Klingon Temporal Intelligence for effort in fighting the Sphere Builder's proxies, a faction of that universe's Empire.

"Neither are you," D'ellian replied, "Which makes me wonder why you are here, unless Daniels is breathing down your neck. He never struck me as one to allow someone else to substitute their judgement."

"I hoped our transmission secure, General," the figure said. "But Daniel's position and resources are nebulous, even forward from our point in the timeline."

"Your transmission was detected," Foch said. "But we didn't know what it was. I never expected… this of you, General. An invasion?" He finally stood up, and dusted on his tunic.

The figure in the holoemitter laughed at that. Now that Foch could see clearly, it wasn't the holoemitter, the figure's features were obscure. As best Foch could eliminate 'Tholian' from possible species.

"Oh, Captain – our contact is sending back something far more powerful than a fleet," D'ellian said. "These are _our_ ships – the Alliance. Not everyone, even within the Temporal Defense organizations, are willing to risk the assurances and meddling of a _potential_ future." She turned to the figure. "You understand, of course."

Foch shuddered at that. He'd seen fleets of Tholians massacred, garden worlds devastated, brave fellow officers sent to their deaths, with simply an assurance that this was 'already' part of history. A history determined by its future. "This is technical assistance? Designs for ships to alter the past?"

D'ellian looked at him, and Foch had a brief feeling of a mouse being toyed with by a cat. Then her vision cleared. "I could say 'yes', but I will be accurate – these are ships designed by coordinated teams across the Alliance, not just toys we are not expected to understand from the future, merely appreciate. And not just for Starfleet either – advance to production the laboratory theories we see on those ships, and with the spaceframes we know work from before the Na'kuhl mess started."

"Fair point," Foch said, who drove a ship that fit that description; the _Roland_ was filled with black boxes, and strange, but useful devices. They were kept so busy, there was no chance to really examine them, or even drill them to their full potential.

"The various governments may join under a true political solidarity without emphasis from the future," the figure said. "This is one area I agree with Captain Walker's timeline of events. Daniels, despite his claims of defending the timeline, is more than willing to weight the Federation militarily and scientifically above what it could claim through natural progression. These ships are, natural progression. I feel a more… _balanced_ polity is worth evolving"

Foch moved to a neutral stance. "This sounds reasonable," he said. "Though I am in dangerously close proximity to an Orion female. But if so true, what is the power from the future?"

"Yes or no," General D'ellian said. "An evaluation by one of the many other shifting factions of the future, to simply confirm we can integrate the machinery onto their hulls. _We_ are the ones transmitting technical data. They are analyzing if it is possible."

The figure vanished briefly, then appeared again – static apparently starting to fill the hologram. "General, something is interfering with the contact, so I will believe. Our analysis shows the design is _possible_ in your would need a facility the size of a world to handle the construction given the limitations of your fabricator technology with the components needed. I do not think the military shipyards of our time could produce such a design easily." The screen started to fuzz, "Your governments were not clear on all the plans, but… I believe this is the last 'time' we will speak, you having granted my fondest wish." The hologram dissolved to static, though it seemed it was not going to standby.

"Ah, my strange friend," the Orion said softly. "The Empire, the Republic, even the Federation _have_ a shipyard the size of a planet; several planets even. I am surprised it is not a factor in your time."

"The Sphere," Foch said, not a question. "That is a unified entity of several departments, not something you could do in secret."

"Yes, an Alliance-controlled facility, open to our governments and potentially others – bringing parity to these strange time manipulations. Yes, we use the Wells as a base, but these have been drifting into the Nebula for years, it seems," D'ellian replied. She thought a moment, concerned, "Why the Sphere wouldn't be in action in the future."

The hologram flickered, then steady, a figure reappearing, but this was a figure with definition. Aaron Newness, Foch's human Weapons Officer, in Tarsi's department. And he spoke, Foch could hear it overlaid in the ear, courtesy of the chroniton web. "Captain, wasn't expecting to see you – we got your distress message, and I think we broke into the beam." D'ellian nodded here, the nod of a professional to another. "Um, are you okay sir?" the lieutenant asked, taking in the Orion.

"This is business," Foch said. "Is _Roland_ ready? I think the signal has been defined, but seems to have been an interdepartmental issue. A tragic widow in the wrong time but right place."

Aaron looked blank at that. "Yes sir," he said, "We got a call before we reached yours – we weren't sure how to handle it; let me patch it through since we have two-way communication. We're getting some weird stuff out of the temporal circuitry, I think we need 718 here, sir."

Foch nodded and his ship's fourth officer vanished, being replaced by a greying Human familiar to Foch in a maroon uniform; one of the time periods he had skipped over in Starfleet. " _Roland_ , Hello again, this is Admiral Chekov. Timeline integration check is three-seven-alpha-four-six. The situation with the Temporal Liberation Front has turned catastrophic since we last met, and the Envoy – Noye – has achieved significant victories. The Terran Empire of your current time is supplying troops."

Chekov took a deep breath, and continued. "Daniels has fallen, your investigatory mission is cancelled. Follow attached coordinates to the Array at New Khitomer. We have very little time to organize, perhaps half an hour. If there is anyone nearby trustworthy, we can authorize the removal of one additional ship. The Procyon V nexus is in grave danger of collapse."

The view switched back to the lieutenant. "We put in the coordinates but we're seeing an odd power drain in the temporal core" Newness said, worried. "We need you back."

"Will comply, _Roland_ ," Foch said. The signal winked out. "My crew heard that as well, I hope," Foch said. "Send the data for those ships; it cannot hurt at this point." Foch held the gun D'ellian dropped on her clearly. "But only the yes or no, please."

"Ah, not so easily breaking down," D'ellian said with approval. "I will not demean you by assuring you this is correct or the right thing in the end. Or even if it will change things in the battle."

"It is proactive. I have seen several worlds that have fallen into indolence, and I do not wish that on any civilization. If that is what the future expects, it may need to change. Time will tell," Foch said. "For Procyon V, it cannot hurt. Last I met Admiral Chekov was at the _Enterprise_ , and he sounded much more confident about it. I am Starfleet; I must have faith in the Federation I am in, not the assurances of the future." Foch blinked, "Actually, why can't we hear the fire alarm?"

"The wha? Oh – security seal on the quarters, when serving as an illicit contact for shadowy future entities, it seemed a wise precaution," D'ellian said. "It is done, no takebacks," she said, serious. "This may hurt you with your sponsors."

"I am still Starfleet," Foch said, and he felt a weight from his shoulders at that, and he held the blocky gun out for D'ellian to take back. "Whatever happens, I work to defend the Federation with my judgement. But, my lady General, we have little time. Would you do the honor of accompanying me?"

"Procyon V?" D'ellian said. "I have a Xindi ship right now; their people know of it, and told me. I would be ripped limb from limb if there was a chance they would miss it." She spoke and there was no exaggeration in her voice.

She tapped a button, and suddenly there was a sound of alarms in the quarters. The security seal was off. "General to _Mchwa_ , prepare for immediate transport of crew and passengers – get us cleared for departure."

"Ah, General," came a series of clicks. With a roll of her eyes, D'ellian transferred the translation to a screen. "We are getting all sorts of strange reports – there seems to be a fire, some sort of power surge wiped half the sector station's navigation database, and there seems to be a small band of Federation pirates that are manning a barricade at the alcohol dispensary, holding off the security staff. The station insists they do not need help but we stand ready."

Foch shrugged. "You have met my crew, they are very capable," he reminded her when she briefly tabbed the communicator off. Her composure twitched but did not sort.

"Yes, if you end up getting court-martialed for this, the House of M'ara could use talent," D'ellian said, then tabbed on the communicator. "Get me K'Gan," she directed.

"General," came a heavy Klingon voice. "We were obtaining much honor against a band of Federation pirates who wished to seize our bar, but a data pulse damaged the station. We retreated to study it when the security alert went off per your orders but the commander is blocking our efforts – Leng is safely off station."

"Ready a full report to transmit to Intelligence – return to the _Mchwa_ and standby in the armory," D'ellian said. She switched the channel back over. "Bridge? Ready for transport of myself and several others – I will send the detail momentarily."

An affirmation came and she turned. "I think your group's brave defense is at an end – give me their bio information and we can arrange a transport."

"Yes, I will go and settle things there if you can get me clearance," Foch said. "Shame to lose the _Yvon_."

"The what?" D'ellian asked.

"Oh, a class F shuttle. I suppose its value is sentimental-" Foch said, as he started typing in information in D'ellian's console. Not the coordinates for _Roland_ yet – not until his crew was safely together.

"The _Mchwa_ is a light carrier. I'm sure the commander would be happy to decompress some bays at this point; we will pick it up as we swing by," D'ellian said.

* * *

D'ellian was as good as her word, the claw-like Xindi ship snagged a tractor beam out and picked the _Yvon_ out from amid a shower of debris and disruptor coils that had been unpacked. It was in the escort carrier's shuttle bay before Foch and his crew beamed aboard, leaving several Romulans smelling more of alcohol than they would prefer, and thoroughly humiliated Klingons. If the stakes hadn't suddenly risen to a galaxy, Foch would consider it a good shore leave and a great mission.

Certainly from an Intelligence standpoint, it had been useful. Enough casual talk, when combined, could sink fleets. And perhaps with a little more knowledge and a face on it, the Federation could get someone out to help the Atodes maintain their role as a Klingon puppet state, instead of an Imperial tribute planet.

Though Foch suspected Intelligence would be more interested in this next phase of the mission. The ship was Xindi-Insectoid, through and through, but at the center of its bridge stood an Orion. The General was talking to a broad Gorn, also in KDF leathers – with several Imperial Klingons around the bridge's secondary stations.

Seen in a more KDF context, Foch recognized the non-bugs on the bridge both from the bar and their mission to the alternate universe (he said so easily): the General's long-term crew and staff. Foch had his own crew at the back of the bridge, standing somewhat uneasy and unsure where to go.

That had been a KDF battlecruiser. Foch wondered how the Orion had ended up with a band of Insectoid privateers. Though how an Orion had reached a point where the Empire trusted her above all others with secret technical plans was probably an even better story.

The bridge itself was _not_ KDF. The steam vents and duct work to supply the lowland Insectoid's favorite atmospheric mix hissed away. The controls resembled icosahedrons, lights against dark matter. It was vaguely honeycombish to Foch's human mind, but the Ferengi, he had learned, used similar control surfaces. The bridge was otherwise common; indirect lighting – a raised back command section leading down to a broad viewscreen; secondary panels and readouts along the walls.

There was one thing missing: chairs. The Xindi-Insectoid leg structure explained that, at least. Foch had yet to hear a satisfactory explanation why the future had given them up on multi-species craft. He glanced at the tactical display while waiting, and suppressed a low whistle. If handled by anything with a pulse, this one ship could shred an entire standard convoy escort. If its fighters were similarly hot-rodded, Foch doubted it would take more than shield damage.

D'ellian finished speaking and gave a tight smile. "Yes, the readings are accurate – though we had to use some rather active coolant mixtures to pack everything in. I find preparedness is nine-tenths of victory," she said, apparently reading his thoughts. "Even if I didn't have other reasons, helping in this battle is a fine payment for reminding me that chance is the other tenth," she said, somewhat rueful. Foch suspected he'd come the closest to getting the drop on her in years.

"It was a team effort," Foch said. "Do we have clearance from the station?" D'ellian waved dismissively at that. Foch pulled out an isolinear chip from a pocket and slid it over. "Navigation coordinates and the timing algorithm for the frequency we need to get into contact. Should be about five light years spinward."

D'ellian handed the chip to the Gorn, who had practically materialized at her side, but did not wait for him to read it on a separated system. "Helm, get us pointed in the right direction, standby alert," she ordered. "Move us out of the station control zone and ready for warp."

A Xindi strode to the forward control column and began to manipulate it. "Bringing us to bearing," it clicked, as the low expectant hum of a ship bringing itself to power built up. "Engine room bringing systems out of parking orbit; ninety percent power immediately available."

"Good," D'ellian said. "Thraak, do we have coordinates?"

The Gorn was punching in digits on another console section as he read them off from the chip. "Yes, Dahar Master," he hissed. "Sending to helm. Contact algorithm ready."

D'ellian nodded, and Foch stepped forward slightly. "Captain Foch to _Roland_ , please respond. Ready ship for temporal transit. We are bringing a passenger," he said.

The screen came back instantly. Newness still looked worried. "Captain Foch, we are holding position – ship is at alert status. Sir, we're still experiencing strange power losses from the temporal core, and we've never tried a multi-transit without Daniels. Warp power appears normal, we seem to be losing efficiency."

"The training wheels come off eventually," Foch said. "And you're a fine shiphandler. If you're losing power, I'd rather not wait to arrange a beam-over." He felt the lurch of the ship entering warp, and continued. "The Dahar Master will be assisting us, you should see us on your screens shortly."

718 had gone over to Thraak at the side panel. Two of the Xindi had joined in a low conversation as the ship rippled through subspace on their quick jaunt. Several different views flashed by on the console, and a certain amount of arm-waving was going on. Thraak came over, followed by Foch's officer, and gave a fist on chest salute. On D'ellian's incremental nod, he reported.

"Dahar Master, the Starfleet officer and I have consulted with this vessel's sensor staff," Thraak said. "We detect no signs of any progression in subspace that would indicate a deepening problem. Local space appears stable to twelve hours ago."

"This ship's long-range sensor capacity is significant," 718 acknowledged.

"Could the problem, then, be occurring on the other end," Foch said, mouth dry. "Some sort of battle damage or attack?"

"Possible," Thraak said. "Impossible to determine without a better understanding of temporal vortices. A science, from our perspective, still in its infancy."

"I've studied some of Starfleet's previous instances of time travel," Foch said. "Given we know the coordinates, can we do something to 'reduce' the required effort, like a large gravity well or the dilation effect of high-warp travel? We have done some transitions at moderate warp speed, it did seem to cause some differences, yes?"

718 nodded in agreement. "An area where we are capable of such high speeds would be 'smoothed' of likely potential distortions, as well as the obvious distortion effect on space of warp travel."

"The full effect could affect our transit point, or increase the side effects with time travel," Thraak said. "I do not consider this a travel method completely under our control."

"It is something Starfleet is still studying," Foch acknowledged. "But we have used the temporal core's vortex ability safely several times. My main concern is keeping the vortex stable if it's at low power for both ships to transit."

"I do not believe synchronizing our warp fields to a single unit could hurt our chances," Thraak said. "Assuming the coils can take it; this is a delicate maneuver between ships of the same class."

"We are under time pressure, but not combat," D'ellian said. "When we drop out of warp, bring us into position behind the _Roland_."

"Skarvin," Foch ordered, "Head down to their engineering room, and give them our current specs as best you can."

"Sure, get a bilateral warp drive to map out to a three part radial, while trying to run my engine room over a viewscreen," Skarvin grumbled. Foch watched him go.

"He'll do his best,' Foch assured D'ellian.

"I'm sure," the Orion replied politely. The ship's timbre shifted as they dropped down to normal space, the impulse engines kicking back in. The two ships started to exchange a rapid and frantic telemetry now that communications could be utterly secure over tightbeam.

Joining two ships in the same warp bubble could be done at speed; but was more doable from a standing start. It was still the problem of making two different ships to act as the same ship… which was also broken in two pieces, relative to the warp field. Fortunately, the inefficiencies were less of a problem; ships were pretty overpowered compared to their engine capacity, so Foch's guess was they could make Warp 8.

The two ships came to a stop. There was a brief pause, and the helmsman gave a hesitant clicking of jaws that they were ready. After a minute, there was a sudden screeching over the comms. "Abort, abort!" Skarvin said frantically. The helmsman slammed down on the console, a touchpad over which its hand had hovered.

There was an answering screech from behind them – a thrumming –an emergency plasma vent. The power had to go somewhere from the nacelles. On the screen, Roland's right engine flared, then crackled; static discharge on a scale no sky had seen.

" _Roland_ had a heterodyne we couldn't compensate from here in the starboard nacelle; the off-axis controller just burnt out, we have no maneuverability at warp. I don't know if they were asleep or blind," Skarvin reported, adding several rather inventive curses about his junior officers.

Foch didn't blame him. By the time those were obvious all the way in main engineering, they had been building a while at the engine. The crew there should have caught it or at least alerted, even if the distortion wasn't immediately dangerous. Trying to manage it from a whole different ship, all Skarvin could do is stop _Mchwa_ plowing into _Roland_ when it failed to go anywhere.

Foch had inherited his original crew, but the survivors who joined the _Roland_ had been drafted from all different sources; not his picks, with the ship lying half-completed or in dock while on more subtle missions. Regardless, if they made it and time survived, he resolved to do better.

"Give me a status report," he ordered.

"Main energizers still active, we have full antimatter power," Skarvin said. "Temporal core giving some really weird signals that I'm sure 718 would love to spend a week deciphering. All I can see from here is our predicted power curve to those coordinates seems to be getting worse. It doesn't seem to think it can hold the vortex."

"Would it help if the _Mchwa_ gave us a push?" Foch asked, sarcastic.

"We could, perhaps," D'ellian said. "We have very heavy tractor beam emitters. And quantum slipstream generators. They could provide some of the effect." 718 nodded.

Skarvin said, over the link, "I think we need to switch to the Imperial supply network."

"Yes, there is a cost factor," the Dahar Master acknowledged. The Gorn laughed at that, ruefully. "But success can depend on a sharp spearhead more than war of accountants."

" _Roland_? Get ready for a push," Foch said. "All available power to the temporal core and begin sequence. I do not think our chances will get any better than now. Prepare to be brought under tow. You're still guiding us, so keep navigation on."

"Aye sir," Newness said miserably.

"Quantum slipstream standby," D'ellian said. "Keep helm locked to them, warriors: ready for possible distortions or to compensate for gravimetric shear. We are trying for maximum distortion over speed." Very briefly, she spared a glance for Foch.

With a hum of capacitors, the feel of light and space on the bridge changed. The viewscreen showed the stars going out, the cloudy spiral of quantum 'froth' surrounding them in a tunnel of blue light, isolating them into a dimension where speeds available exceeded subspace. That was how 718 explained it, anyway, besides 'it helped ships go very fast'. What Foch did know is they were, effectively, in a relativistic reference frame while staying still.

"Temporal core output increasing," Newness said excitedly, briefly running off screen and back. "Vortex opening along temporal navigation axis!"

In front of them, the blue 'froth' parted as a searing point of white light appeared. Energy spiraled out as the strange streaked void of temporal transit appeared… but only barely.

"The vortex is too small for either ship to make transit!" Thraak said, alarmed.

"General, we just lost the carrier wave to the Empire's navigational buoy network," clicked one of the Insectoid crew in alarm.

"Captain, Foch, we can't push it beyond this and keep it stable. We're not getting sufficient chroniton decay to push it any further," Newness aid. "We can try shutting it down and reset the coordinates-" he offered, but was interrupted by both captains.

"NO!" they shouted as one. D'ellian gestured. Foch said, "Whatever temporal effects we're moving to encounter are having an effect – we should not leave the temporal wake. Keep that vortex open, Lieutenant!" Newness nodded.

"I am unclear what else we can provide; this is not sustainable," D'ellian admitted. She turned to look at a console. "The emitter load is increasing, this can only be sustained for a few minutes."

718 suggested, "The Roland could generate a static warp bubble? Give some more time?"

Foch waved it away. "No, enough with the technology we cannot fully use – this ship has power and we have a hole, but not large enough, yes?"

"Yes," 718 said, confused.

Foch was already walking to the console he had noticed earlier. "Tarsi, give me the exact placement on the edges of the field," he said. The _Mchwa_ was a cone, after all, extending 'around' the rather flat _Roland_. Which meant it had clearance to _see_ the vortex, even if neither could go through. The Andorian nodded and smiling tightly, brushed past the Gorn to the science side panel.

"The weapons have never been tested in a quantum environment," the Xindi at the controls protested, refusing to move.

"The readouts still look good, yes?" Foch asked, and the Xindi turned briefly. Foch moved – even with the insectoid differences, a biped was a biped – and caught by surprise in a hip throw, there wasn't much one could do until they hit the deck. Cursing, the Xindi moved to fight as he leapt to his feet, but one of D'ellian's subordinates clasped the Insectoid on the shoulder.

"If this does not work, we will never know it," the Klingon said, chuckling. Violence always was the route for cheap laughs with Klingons. "But we die fighting."

"Quite," Foch muttered. The readouts were, indeed still go. "Bringing reserve coolant pumps online, setting minimum cycle time for rapid fire," he said.

"Emitters approaching polarization limit," Skarvin reported over the link. "I hope you're not about to do what I think, Captain, but do it fast so we're around to tell you how bad an idea it is."

D'ellian agreed, and grabbed the other side of the tactical console. "Quite," she echoed. "You're cleared to fire, captain."

Foch fired, pressing the surface with more force than was strictly necessary. Bolts screamed out from the ship's weapon tips, smashing the edges of the vortex. The tear glowed with energy, and _Roland_ 's surface deflectors flared with energy.

"Navigational axis is starting to drift around center point," Newness said, "But we're getting a boost – vortex extending to maximum!"

"Go, full impulse into the vortex!" D'ellian ordered.

Propelling _Roland_ ahead of them, they vanished into the ether.

* * *

 _28_ _th_ _century, New Khitomer. Half an hour until Ragnorak_

The two ships emerged, eldritch energies streaming off them from the vortex. The grand megastructure of New Khitomer was there, thankfully. Foch concentrated on being able to breathe again. That had been a rough transition, the last few minutes echoing around them over and over. Maybe the worst he had experienced?

"Are we all where we should be?" D'ellian said, and she sounded shaky. She was gripping the console still; knuckles gone gray under the strain. She took a cautionary breath, and started to steady herself.

Thraak was looking greener around the scales than normal. "Star pattern seems to indicate the right time – there are very few ships in the area, a few Federation and what looks like a Republic warbird."

" _Roland_ , get us local control," Foch ordered.

"Aye," came back, voice only over the link, weakly from Newness.

"Captain Foch, you're on the early end of the navigation window, we've had very few arrivals, but anti-tachyon levels indicate more are coming," came back Chekov's voice. "Fortunately, we still have several hours to organize."

Foch looked at D'ellian, who failed not to look smug, "Admiral, your communication indicated we barely had time and gave a specific spacetime coordinate set?"

"Well, yes, but some allowance around the point for navigation is standard," Chekov said. Foch closed his eyes and valiantly held onto his temper. "As to your current point; something seems to have shifted things forward – temporal shields were stressed briefly but now look to hold at least five hours – a comfortable margin."

D'ellian, thanks to pheromones, apparently could literally radiate smugness. "I see," Foch said. "Well, we must prepare.

 _28_ _th_ _century, New Khitomer._ _Half an hour until Ragnorak_ _Five hours until Ragnorak_

* * *

Author's note:

Yes, the timeline changed in this one to affect the first chapter. This is why everyone hates time travel for disrupting drama. It's a mess. Foch much prefers problems he can punch, but I think Daniels' tendency to call the Agent of Yesterday Temporal Agents as muscle backfired a bit here. He has the potential to be a great captain, if he gets to focus on it.

We're about ready for characters to start in the actual mission, now that the pieces are being delivered to New Khitomer, so I guess it's a good question where causality comes into this.

Just to put everything on the same page where I'm going with this knot – what _seems_ to be happening is that Procyon V, with the Sphere Builders at their most capable, was one of the best opportunities to destroy the Federation (and the Alliance, whose core worlds and territories aren't that far from Earth). It didn't work. The Sphere Builders got into the whole mess with the Xindi to try and strike at a different point, but weren't able to affect things very much but directly, and Daniels was able to nudge things so those didn't work.

Enter Noye in his form as the Envoy, taking advantage of the Annorax's temporal travel abilities to 'repeat' events – jumping around causality in a way that most time travel doesn't seem to allow. He targets Procyon V as the point to bring down everything. Even New Khitomer is uptime. If Procyon V falls, there will be no time travelling Federation in the future, removing all their influence on the timeline, allowing Noye to more carefully take his revenge against the 25th century Alliance without worries Captain Walker's Starfleet, which is very straightforwardly dedicated to countering temporal incursions, or Daniel's group, which seems to use them to their own ends.

Noye then recruits several minor groups, but ones with time travel, to help up the game at Procyon V, but it doesn't work, but their extra pressure weakens Daniel and his group. The final group entered, the Mirror Universe, are from a separate timeline, so can be a _major_ player Daniels can't spot, and so they kill him.

The Starfleet 'plan' for Procyon V, upcoming from Daniels perspective, repeatedly from Noye's, is now being acted out by people who don't have all the pieces and hope they can make it work. Meanwhile, the Mirror Universe gives a huge wave of cannon fodder, and also a group that are full time spacers, compared to the 'irregulars' of the Na'kuhl, the Kremin remnants, the Sphere Builders originating from a different set of physics (nowadays) and the Vorgon thieves.

The Sphere Builders have used information from the future to reinforce their Spheres, so the _Enterprise-_ J can't blow them the way the NX-01 did. The Tox Uthat serves to counterbalance that advantage, and Noye has worked to hem in the _Enterprise-_ J. Now, all his cards are on the table. If the _Enterprise-J_ fails, most of life in the Alpha and Beta quadrants will be lost, and the timeline will be left open for manipulation to the whims of anyone with a time machine.

Chekov has therefore dealt the last hole card Daniels had left; the Temporal Agents, removed and continued past the point history recorded as their deaths, a force 'unseen' by the other forces in the Temporal Cold War. But they're still unsteady and unused to playing at this level without guidance, but they're the last force available to either side.

A side that Foch has just unexpectedly allowed to be reinforced. A Knight-Errant, after all, with no direction but his honor, may be the truest knight of all.


	3. The Assassin

At the Jaws of Fenrir:

Chapter 3: The Assassin

By tremor3258

A Retelling of the 'Ragnarok' mission

* * *

 _28_ _th_ _Century, New Khitomer, four and half hours until Ragnarok_

Dahar Master D'ellian found herself taking in the view still, soaking in a nearly religious high. On the viewscreen of the small escort carrier's bridge was displayed, in all its glory, the orbital ring of New Khitomer. It was truly glorious. The reports given from the previous visits of the past to New Khitomer had made her assume some cluster of stations in low orbit. This was a _single_ station, a megastructure of astonishing complexity and size. The entirety of the Q'onos shipyards would fit in a small section of it.

And in only a few hundred years, _people_ would be capable of such feats. Such great works had been accomplished by other civilizations, but ones that had millennia of experience in space and millions of years of culture. The Empire was less than 1500 standard years old, and had been conquerors of space for only a few centuries. Truly, they were the slayers of gods.

Compare the likes of the species she was a part of by birth. The Orions had lounged and lolled around the quadrant for centuries, reaching great heights of culture. But their confidence in their superiority led to them falling into a stupor, remolding themselves into imagined pinnacles of masculinity and femininity. Sloth had reduced them to parasites on greater powers, clever ones, but not rulers of empires or builders of great fleets.

She had visited Boreth, and fought the demons of Gre'thor along the clone of the First Emperor. She had fought the Undine, the qa'meH quv themselves, stealers of honor. She had faced the pawns of the demons of air and darkness, from both the bridge of a ship and in ground combat. She was a warrior by choice, pirate by heritage, and Orion by birth, but never had she felt more Klingon knowing they would be a part of this.

"We have completed the record of damage, General," clicked Sh'ket, the _Mchwa_ 's engineer, the translation displaying across D'ellian's wrist computer and thumping her wrist with a tactile battle code. D'ellian heard, and felt, and a lifetime of effort let her pull herself way from the view, turning to face her officers. The Xindi-Insectoid would wait patiently, but it would not be Klingon to glory in pleasure. And D'ellian always, _always_ had to be Klingon to succeed and survive.

Ch'gren, D'ellian's long-time comrade in arms and usual chief engineer for KDF-built ships, stepped forward to give the verbal report. The Insectoids were fierce warriors, brave ship-handlers, and worthy employees, but the difficulty in capturing their speech in translation meant they gave longer passages to allies with more common mouth structures. Ch'gren's eyes were alight with Klingon delight at the megastructure, but he gave his report professionally. The spark of resentment at her core on how easy it was for them never made D'ellian's face, her posture, or even her pheromones.

"The _Mchwa's_ dilithium matrix is stable after the time passage. We have completed an evaluation of the outer hull. Three microfractures were found in the outer hull at Frame 35, near the slipstream emitter there. They are being repaired now from within the ship. Structural integrity is otherwise intact. Deflector grid is at one hundred percent. Slipstream emitter components are seventy percent fused in their ablative components; within the expected range for their use. The outer tips of the forward plasma cannons show unusual corrosion. An extravehicular team is currently ablating them," Ch'gren said. "Hanger bay supply stocks are at full. The ship is ready for battle now, if necessary."

Ch'gren handed a PADD with the lengthier full report. She took the PADD, to glance over briefly, as required. She did not doubt Ch'gren's summary or the analysis of the Xindi. The _Mchwa_ was also their home, and they were as eager to make sure everything was perfect in normal service as they were then eager to send it into battle afterwards. An expensive lifestyle.

D'ellian expected the next battle they would enter for free, though. "Sh'ket," she said, "The records given by Admiral Chekov are very thin. And the KDF has only _Demonslayer's_ battle against the Sphere Builder for our Record of Battle, clearly some distance in the Sphere Builder's past. Is there anything your people can add about Procyon V?"

"Little," Sh'ket said, "To our shame. A very great shame. We were told of it, only in that the Federation would kill us there and then, and we must strike first. That the Sphere Builders were killers, and we had been turned against friends. What happens, our hive stands with you, General. In some way, we will absolve this shame. The Xindi have always been prepared for this battle, to happen in our lifetime…"

D'ellian was good at reading emotion; but of more mammalian species. The mechanical translator stripped the Insectoids, part of an elaborate and intricate five-race culture, of eloquence. But for once some fervor came through.

"Klingons believe sufficient effort can repair a mistake elsewhere," D'ellian assured them. "The Xindi have their honor, even in the Empire's space." Ch'gren nodded as well. "I understand the Xindi build their ships with an insulation against the radiation and spatial anomalies that previously were in the Expanse." Sh'ket clacked his jaws affirmatively. "Will our fighters be insulated?" The Olaen-class carried a carrier-grade hanger facility, elaborate replicators and assembly stations to build attrition units rapidly, along with transporters to recover the pilots.

"Perhaps," Sh'ket admitted, "The Klingon technology you provided has allowed us to provide better shields to our Castrois. But the _Mchwa_ carries very little excess Trellium-D in our usual stores. It is hard to synthesize, and difficult to obtain even in Xindi space. We cannot waste us. History assures the Xindi Trellium-D is effective; but deflectors are far better than when the Expanse existed."

 _Just when you think the Xindi were at their heart within the Empire, one gives a truly Federation-length "I don't know,"_ D'ellian marveled to herself.

"Transporter effects weren't interrupted on _Demonslayer_ ," Ch'gren said. "Our fighters are replaceable, if it comes to that, as we can reclaim the warriors. And without that, the Insectoids still have their cannons." Sh'ket nodded at that.

"Very well, then we have our complete report," D'ellian said. "Communications specialist:" The Xindi turned and gave a bow. "Has there been an update from my staff or Captain Foch?" she asked. She checked the local sensor reports – several of the various 'temporal' 26th century loan ships of various classes, themselves, a broad _Deihu_. Another ship was popping in. Space was filled with communications, but most of it was everyone asking for information, and little to provide.

Her place had been here until the ship was ready, but she had staff to start laying some groundwork. Thraak and K'Gan had beamed over to the megastructure.

On a negative from the communication rating, D'ellian ordered, "Continue listening for system traffic. Forces are still arriving, and we should have a battle slot soon. Run hanger recovery drills in our absence. I will beam to the station. Ch'gren will accompany me." The other bridge crew gave an affirmative, as the two aliens entered the turbolift.

As the doors closed, Ch'gren adjusted the controls for a slower transit, and said, "General – this ship is full of ready hearts, and I will defend my efforts in the refit of the vessel, but improved weapons and high-powered deflectors does not make it something else, only better at what it was. This ship is built for rapid battle, quick strikes or defending against the same. It is not a fleet carrier. We do not carry the supplies for a sustained battle at full efficiency."

The _Mchwa_ had been down on its luck when Thraak had found and arranged a contract. The ship was normally useful for all sorts of enforcement and strike missions that were helping keep the Empire together after the shattering blows of the Iconian War. But it was truly an escort design; hull packed to capacity with equipment with limited ability to maintain or sustain it.

"I agree," D'ellian said, "Starfleet's lent time ships will have to carry the load of the heart of the battle if this ship is to get its most use. And we must not only find victory, but live to report on it to the Empire." She sighed, "And that is worrying – Foch is capable; capable enough to nearly derail White Widow, but his ship and crew failed repeatedly in trying to reach this staging point. Combat I will grant him, but time is not his domain."

"Yes,' Ch'gren said, "The timeships that are here are capable on paper, but what battle have they seen? And the future they come from? This future of amalgamation… the Federation are fine enemies and friends, but to serve under the same leaders. The Empire is a living entity, and changes, but this feels unnatural."

"Powerful manipulators are at work," D'ellian agreed. "Which is why the Council picked me for the mission. Foch seems to think it was successful but the nature of time travel – the ships will not be ready for years. Perhaps they will affect the battle, but none have arrived here to assist the Temporal Defense group. Which unfortunately means we will be operating under… the Federation's command."

White Widow had been started as Temporal Defense operations had kicked into high gear, with time travelers launching terrorist attacks on the present. Forces from the future had arrived to help immediately counter operations where possible. But a different faction had arranged Starfleet to receive time ships of their own, and only Starfleet under one obscure bureau.

The High Council had observed that a war, after all, is not necessarily limited to two sides. Large parts of the Federation had agreed with the Empire and the Romulan Republic. Hundreds of operatives and thousands of analysts had spent months finding a thread of temporal intervention that they could contact. In Klingon fashion, the final contact had been as face-to-face as could be arranged, a trained master manipulator and loyal Klingon warrior to ascertain that the truth was spoken when a question had been asked.

The question was simple. Were the laboratory experiments and engineering analysis the Alliance taking lead to some form of successful timeship, under the control of the Alliance of the current time and reality, instead of shades being provided by some operative of a future so uncertain it required constant adjustment. The answer had been yes, the word given. But before D'ellian could see the fruits of her actions; she had volunteered to fight for a great battle in the future of the Galaxy.

Apparently, Temporal Defense was bad at its job, as the timeline had been collapsing around them; was still collapsing, as far as their sensors could tell. New Khitomer has some sort of shielding; reality outside was no longer there. Reality would soon no longer be _here_ , but they had a few hours yet, to try and gather what strength they could.

"Whatever group Foch is part of, it seems the most active, but it is not the only side," D'ellian continued. "Why risk all our power to one faction, especially as we are here to observe? This future unfolded without us– if time existed long enough, I would assume they organized as another fleet, knowing about us with this one. And the _Mchwa_ is limited, but knowing limits is the beginning of mastery"

Ch'gren grunted, "There is wisdom there." He sped the turbolift back up.

 _But as Ch'gren noted, all these ships are tools. And a tool can be used before it is understood or can be build, but is always used worse. I must not let the crew consider that fact, that all those from an era where the limits of the tools such as timeships are lost to us here at New Khitomer_. D'ellian thought.

* * *

The two beamed over in a haze of Klingon red – the transporter system had been part of the system upgrades. The station, however, was a depressingly Federation blue, and since they'd been told they were beaming to the Temporal Array's control center, that was worrying.

Foch was there, looking worried as well, near Thraak and K'Gan. Several other personnel were moving through the area, but no one seemed to be running the transporter on this end. There was a prominent console, but it was unmanned.

"It seems by the 26th century, automation has trumped common sense," K'Gan said, following his superior's gaze. For a while in Klingon history; the transporter had been a popular weapon of assassination, with the subtle 'mistakes' that could lead to lethal neurochemistry. It was a famous coward's weapon.

What the stories didn't note was this 'coward's' weapon was too easy to trace these days. D'ellian always preferred the tried and true method where one arranged a death-duel against a rival they could not hope to defeat as an assassination. It was often quietly applauded, as it took to skill to judge a rival's abilities well enough to set them at an unstoppable enemy, and goad even a Klingon's blood up so far to be so foolish.

"Common sense is a precious commodity in all times," Foch said, looking miserable.

"Ah, did you execute that fool who nearly collapsed your starboard nacelle?" D'ellian asked, knowing the answer.

"Of course not!" Foch said, appalled and shocked into angry. "You're as cold as Klingon under that green skin, aren't you!"

"Flattery wasn't what I was asking for," D'ellian said, jaunty. "So what did you do?"

Foch said, "Ensign Johnson was reassigned to subsidiary duties for the moment. We're locking it down, but we'll need a shipyard to finish the repairs or a half of a spare nacelle for warp combat."

The captain looked more balanced now. A human out of self-pity didn't love to talk _quite_ as much. Worth the distraction, so she asked now. "So, what is happening that has diminished common sense reserves?"

"You may have noticed, that we are making this up more as we go along than we like," Foch said wryly. "And the help docs assume a certain body of knowledge yet to exist, and there is no one to spoil us on those tidbits. This is breeding some resentment and doubts on what knowledge we do have."

Thraak added, "General, from the scans we have made, the station appears to be completely unpopulated within a hundred kilometers in either direction. And those same scans show it was not _intended_ to be completely automated. Multiple discharges; photon grenades, decayed nadion traces."

K'Gan added, "The recent security tapes were unsecured – Noye and his allies used their secret alliance with the Terran Empire. The personnel here were unaware the access codes they were answering were those of quantum duplicates from another continuum. They achieved complete surprise."

Thraak said, "Sheer luck meant Daniels was tied into the Array as it went offline. The Terran intervention caught him by surprise. He did not survive."

"He intervened directly?" D'ellian said, surprised. "I didn't think he had that mettle."

"He was shot from behind, so no great glory there," K'Gan said. D'ellian sighed in disgust. Foch shook his head. "This array is temporally shielded, but will last only a few hours longer before the timeline changes catch up with it, as the forces left here to the great battle at Procyon V the Xindi speak of. The Romulans who ended up having to call for help, so a very surprising day all around. Captain Walker's forces left ahead, now that they knew what we were up against," K'Gan finished.

"Well, most of the Romulans who thought they could still go it alone are busy still plotting to gain power over other factions, or implemented those plans and are now dead," D'ellian said. K'Gan nodded at that – they'd helped continue Romulan natural selection a few times themselves.

"Romulans swallowing their pride probably has been the hardest adjustment for most of the Temporal Defense group to make," Foch commented. "It just defies reason."

"Perhaps it was surgically implanted in Daniels," D'ellian mused, trying to get the conversation back on track. "On a facility held by hostiles and surprised like that."

"Reasonable theory: _I_ don't think he ever thought he could lose," Foch said. "He doesn't seem to have made contingencies to that effect. Admiral Chekov hasn't had long to look through the files, but we haven't found an operational plan to adopt yet."

"WHAT?" D'ellians aides shouted as one. She had more control, and her mind worked.

"So that is why no answers are being given," D'ellian said, "But why is it an issue? You have hundreds of Starfleet engineers here and scientists here, and more arriving by the moment. There should be plenty of specialists to analyze the databanks."

"It's about navigation," Foch said. "Most of them have never worked with the admiral before. The issues with the simultaneous transition point has damaged many of the ships, especially the non timeships, to some degree, and so most personnel are busy with repairs. This could be avoided, but no admiral wants to look a fool, no more than a captain does."

 _Though you're handling it well_ , D'ellian thought to herself. Aloud, she said, "So I presume, given the recent history of failure, some captains are moving to be granted command given the enormous stakes?" Foch nodded. "So why are you here? You indicated you met the Admiral, and our previous dealings you seemed to be well respected in your little cabal. I presume the endless Federation debate is ongoing"

D'ellian's kinesthetic training could see how much Foch agreed on the cabal remark, though he didn't let it reach his faith. She approved. Foch explained, "Yes, I had a trace set for when you beamed over. Obviously, with your fleet combat experience, I hope you can help devise a plan – most of the captains here have only served in squadron-size engagements. But most of the captains are from earlier eras; they wouldn't expect to see an Orion, especially as a General in the KDF. I thought I should warn you so you would expect their surprise."

His voice was polite, but D'ellian had once seen Foch prepping grenades in ground combat; the sum of his body language was similar. Apparently, Foch had similar ideas on assassination as herself, just on a less bloody battlefield. "Well, then who are the biggest campaigners?" She started moving towards the doors. Foch jogged to get in front to point the way, her aides falling in behind her.

"Captains Messier and Tycho – Jane Messier was at the Tomed Incident, and Larry Tycho was supposed to die during the Dominion War," Foch said. "And I think I got the names of both of those right." They were both, after all, past his time. "Daniels had the two dealing with squadrons countering Na'kuhl movements in Klingon space during the Hur'q occupation, so they've got better battle experience than anyone but myself and Captain Revka with our equipment. And both led ad hoc squadrons during their last battles, so they are promoting that, yes?"

"Admiral Chekov was officially in Starfleet Security," Thraak added. "He never held a fleet command."

"That is a large part of the problem," Foch said.

"Do you want operational command, then?" D'ellian asked. If Foch wanted to play Klingon-style politics, best to know if he was kingmaker or king.

"I'm a Starfleet captain, if I can get my crew into shape, I may even keep being one," Foch said ruefully. His contribution to White Widow would be approved by the larger Alliance, but was technically against his orders. "I think I'll do better out front than trying to coordinate this mess, but we need to get everyone agree who is in charge so we can get some sort of tactical plan in shape. And Chekov is the one who knows to activate our end goals, so we need to build it with that in mind."

The group went into a side corridor, the density of personnel increasing. D'ellian realized she'd seen only Starfleet.

"You said Daniels was using Romulans – they were left alone for several hours. Normally, they would have their flags up by now and claiming administrative control on behalf of the Alliance," D'ellian said. "Why aren't we up to our necks in Uhlans?"

"Fleet Admiral seh'Virinat is conducting emergency repairs after the battle to reclaim the Array. It's taking the majority of her crew," Foch said blandly, as they reached a set of doors. "I'm sure the fact she realized the extent of damage just as the facility was about to be up to its neck in Ensigns was purely coincidental. She was working on the temporal transponder in main communications – down that corridor." He pointed, and then moved to wait by the door controls.

"Quite," D'ellian said, and brushed her uniform briefly, making sure it had a decent gloss. "Present," she ordered, and her three friends held out their sidearms and stood at attention for inspection. "Guard positions," she said, then corrected herself as they moved to ready. "No, not professionally, like a Starfleet propaganda poster," she said, and unstrapped her bat'leth. She swung the ceremonial weapon around briefly, then held it easily on one hand at her side.

Thraak sighed as bent forward, extending claws, holding a gun out, head to side. K'Gan and Ch'gren chuckled as they puffed their chests out and put away pistols to pull the heavy rifles off their backs. D'ellian had a ranged weapon, but the Omega Force autocarbine in a pistol holster wasn't very threatening except when in use, being more or less a black matte block when not spitting antiproton fire.

"Very throwback," Foch praised, holding up a hand to hide a smirk.

"Foolish Starfleet, not to understand the nature of honor," D'ellian barked, borrowing the tones of her least favorite drill instructor. "Now, _announce_ us," she directed, and dropped it to normal tones, "So we Klingon 'savages' can remind the Alliance this is battle planning, not a council of leadership."

Foch, grinning, tapped in something. It was certainly martial, though not Klingon; using far more brass and chord progressions. D'ellian assumed some private joke, but there was no time. She swished into the room as the door opened, the inhabitants stunned by the music sting.

It was _definitely_ a Federation room, dominated by one of their preferred long-sided conference tables. Chekov had still secured the end of it, indicating dominance in that fashion. It looked like two groups clustered at the other ends of the table – fortunately, they weren't going for a united front. Also, ships were still arriving – power was accumulating around an aggregate, not yet settled. Unfortunately, they were all wearing the 2409 uniform variants beside Chekov, making it harder to identify who was what bloc.

So she said the most divisive thing she could think of, "Who is in charge here?" she said, as deeply as she could manage.

Two Human captains at the ends of the table opened their mouths, helping D'ellian identify their targets, but Chekov had apparently been warned by Foch. "That appears to be the subject of some debate," Chekov said with some amusement, seizing the initiative, "Along with some dispute on our primary objective."

"We don't have the strength for a direct assault," said the male of the two, Tycho evidently. "A strike against the heart of the enemy formation is suicide with our current strength." His voice was tinged with a sort of desperate reasonableness.

"Who are you?" said the other, Messier apparently, and possibly a clearer thinker, or a more direct one.

"I am a Dahar Master. That is what is important. I am also the one here with any courage," D'ellian answered, moving forward in a stalk. Now that she knew which two were her targets, she could get a better sense of their body language. Tycho stiffened, Messier went more still.

"We are arguing about who should be in charge while the galaxy burns," D'ellian said, and motioned briefly with a hand obscured, sending her three to take up guard positions near the door. Foch, exuding bravura and to her eyes, having too much fun, took the fourth guard position by the hatch. "This is not some bickering with petty pirates. This is a campaign that extends across timelines and decades. Which _child_ is foolish enough to shout that they can change the waterfall, an inch above the rocks?" Briefly, the lights flickered – Foch had a career as a stage manager if he ended up cashiered, then.

Captain Tycho rocked back on his heels. She'd thought her accusations would find a home there. A man from a time where Starfleet was being pressed back on all fronts, facing a new enemy with facets he did not understand, feeling again on the defensive. Conserving forces in the situation was natural in the normal flow of events. But he had not grasped there was nothing to conserve them for.

She continued, walking towards Tycho as she did so. "So you – you know our forces so well? How many are arriving? How many will _still_ arrive in the time remaining before this pocket collapses? What equipment are they mounting?" she fairly bellowed. Arriving at Tycho, she put a hand to his chest, and pushed, dropping him down into a chair.

He merely stuttered in response. "Well?" she fairly bellowed, setting an echo in the room. She couldn't do that very often. He shrugged, helplessly. "Your concern is our disposition of forces. That is wise. But you do not know it. That is foolish! Find what we have to work with! Move from fool to wisdom!" He sat in the chair. "GO!" she said – not as loud, but the room still echoed. Perhaps Chekov also had an interest in stagecraft, then.

Tycho leapt up. "Yes sir!" He _actually_ saluted, and left the room. D'ellian nodded briefly. Hesitation was a natural human reaction; apparently he'd come too early in the Dominion War to have Starfleet's peacetime contemplation out of him.

Chekov looked briefly grateful, than closed his eyes in pain when Captain Messier spoke. "I'm not sure where you came from, but shouting doesn't fix the problem. Listen sweeties, it's not just a number game, and dressing up some actress in Klingon leathers doesn't change the situation, _Admiral_ Chekov. We are at a real power disadvantage. This isn't some Academy simulator, trying to promote an alternative viewpoint" she said icingly.

"General, allow me to introduce Captain Messier, I served on her psychological evaluation board when she was graduating the Academy. I may have urged a more contemplative approach after her final test," Chekov said, weary.

"General?" Captain Messier said disbelievingly.

"Among other things," D'ellian said, bristling.

'If you _are_ , then you should laugh at what we're doing," Messier said. "I fought and nearly died to defend the Federation against aggressors – and learn that instead of going in, or opening trade, the Federation spent almost a century ignoring developing the technology that would let us counter the Romulans at their own game, and hope they weren't sending cloaked ships through our space. A Federation that was told about bands of shapeshifters, _twice_ , and figured it would be all right. And now our grand plan is to stick some sort of future technology to make up for the Federation's failings in another hundred years? Why let this crippled beast lurch along? Why not go for the root of the problem?"

"Because," Chekov said sharply, "As I was saying before the General entered the room – Noye's movements remain hidden despite our best efforts. He moves cautiously and through intermediaries to disguise his actions and their effect on the time stream. The Sphere Builders have used hundreds of universes and scanned across timelines to utilize the technology they were given as efficiently as possible. The _Enterprise_ could handle the Sphere Builders' network without assistance, but the Tox Uthat will balance the scales of their temporal manipulations, and let us destroy the network from a specific point. _Enterprise_ can bypass the upgraded defenses to utilize the 26th century Starfleet's plan to turn the Builders' gravimetric actions against themselves."

 _So that was the game with the quantum manipulator_ , D'ellian thought. She'd been wondering its part in this. "I am in no mood to defend your Federation's philosophy," D'ellian said. "The Empire's goal has always been to fight for its own destiny by our strength. But victory is still possible – that means, in spite of every bit of meddling, every action using hindsight to make things _worse_ , turn every bit of chance against your people; the Federation remains in the 26th."

As D'ellian spoke, she spotted a monitor behind Messier's head briefly turn on, then off – showing a view of the room from a security feed. She moved around the table from where she had cowed Tycho towards Messier; time for something a bit more effective than a backup plan.

"As to power, I thought someone who had seen the battles of our time knew a bit more that it remains the captain and crew. Yes, weapons are more powerful, but our body of experience, training and preparation, show us where we can hit – it's never a battle of real power, as exactly where to _apply_ ," D'ellian said, and turned to her science officer. "Thraak, please demonstrate."

The Gorn, weapon at the ready, cocked his head, eyes hidden behind iridescent shields. He brandished the Herald staff. "A useful trophy," D'ellian said. "No, the tricorder – I'm sure that little security hole will be patched sometime in the next few centuries once we get back."

D'ellian could tell her old friend's confusion thanks to long experience. She wagered the other mammals didn't pick up on it as well as she did. Nonetheless, Thraak loyally stabbed a few buttons randomly on the tricorder.

The lights in the room went off.

"One little tricorder against all this computing power," D'ellian lied. "But even the Klingons know when you need more than one." The lights flickered back on. "We can't do it without tactical integration, so I suggest you stop complaining about the objective and figure out how to deploy your ships. Admiral Chekov – Captain Foch has the most experience in battle with your loanships; I suggest working with him on the dispensation of our forces."

D'ellian started to leave the room, not asking for opinions. She got one, per Starfleet protocol, D'ellian suspected.

"Where are you going?" Messier called, still sounding a bit surly.

"There's at least one capital ship from the Alliance out there, with perhaps more around, with the Alliance's complete tactical data tracks. I can't show a Starfleet captain how to run their ship; but by blood, I can show you how to fight one."

* * *

 _Four and a half hours until Ragnarok_

"What would you have done if that didn't work?" Thraak asked as they strode down the corridor.

"Break her nose," D'ellian said. "Soft tissue is easy for Starfleet to repair, and we are out of time to coddle them. We need to remove as much volatility from the crews, and so I need to distract them where the data was coming from." "An effective example, but would lead to resentment," Thraak said. "The humans bear grudges more than they admit."

"As she showed," D'ellian said. "I thought fear or greed was the motivator for the arguments. Foch had missed they were covering despair. It had to be burned before the infection could spread, and I have few cauterizing irons. Better to hate me than the Romulans right now." Thraak nodded.

"But more than you thought," Thraak said, still _sotto voce_.

"Yes, we seem to have a stage director on our side, so I hoped she would have something dramatic ready when I prompted," D'ellian admitted.

"She?" Thraak said more loudly, as they were reaching the door of Temporal Command.

"Oh yes," D'ellian said, putting her swagger back on. "After all, why would the Romulans give up the most powerful spy device; unless they'd already done what they needed to install themselves at its very heart?"

The doors swung open, showing a large meeting hall – but apparently a converted one, as several consoles dominated behind the lectern space. A red-haired Romulan in one of their duty uniforms worked on them. They didn't show much rank pins, but D'ellian knew this Romulan. She'd bene in position to end the Iconian War, and had brought fire to the Tal Shiar and Elachi before. Much more famous as a ship handler and operative than an admiral, D'ellian had to wonder why she was here, but was glad to have some luck.

"Admiral seh'Virinat," D'ellian identified. "When the Republic got you as a captain, the world lost a very fine actress."

"Jolan tru," the Romulan replied, not turning around. "I am glad I was able to help set the stage; but I am afraid things are becoming complicated here, temporally, so I have little concentration to speak."

"That beacon issue?" D'ellian said.

"Yes, I would rather the Republic had gained a temporal theorist in there," Fleet Admiral An'riel seh'Virinat said, frustrated. " _Sparrowhawk_ is reading vastly elevated antitachyon point sources in close proximity; we will be seeing the majority of temporal transits still around the same point in spacetime. I was able to broaden the beacon, but it did not help as much as I would wish."

" _Mchwa_ , D'ellian," D'ellian spoke into her communicator. "Ready for potential emergency – expect engineering and medical casualties."

"Thank you," An'riel said, still tapping away. D'ellian had worked with the Republic operative a few times, not closely, but she'd had a chance to observe her socially. She held herself stiffly – this was one who tried to think each action out. A natural trait for an infiltrator, but also supposedly charismatic with her crew– though Republic Command thought this one walked on water.

She could certainly _play_ charming, but D'ellian's comment has not been whimsical – this Romulan definitely had a face she showed the world. But certainly a problem solver par excellence, one of dozens who had risen to flag rank and _kept_ it in the chaotic last few years.

"Is there anything else my ship can do?" D'ellian said. She herself was an expert on communication and security protocols, coordinating ships and men, body language and how to break them. She was not one to be flummoxed by a control panel, but whatever was going on was beyond her level; and possibly An'riel's.

"I do not know it well enough to say," An'riel said honestly. That was fine, D'ellian knew the Romulan's, and was why she sought her out.

"The deflector is reasonably powerful, though it lacks energy reserves," D'ellian said.

An'riel laughed, nervously, "Energy is not my problem – this ring has enough spare power to kick the Solanae Sphere up to about Warp 4. But most of the control structures are damaged. Most of what I have already done is theoretical. I tried sending a message along the beacon, but apparently the ships were 'already' in the vortex at this point and I could not contact them in the past from the future."

"So the temporal shielding is holding?" D'ellian asked. The stars felt cold and far away.

"Improving," An'riel said. "This entire area was red – what I believe from what I got from Captain Walker was the result of a Sphere Builder victory starting to overwrite a future with the Temporal Accords – that appeared to recede; sometime before Chekov's arrival. Something moved in our favor; perhaps the Elements being on our side. But the stars out there – we are seeing the record of light that no longer exists in the universe. And half this plan may be dead before we start."

Her voice was like a tomb door closing.

"How long?" D'ellian asked.

"Four minutes and a few seconds until the antitachyon event," An'riel said. "Going by the build-up and previously recorded vortices from the meddler's ships."

"Is there any more you can do at this moment?" D'ellian asked. The Romulan shrugged.

"Possibly. I know not what though," she said. A distortion was beginning to become visible to the naked eye. D'ellian swallowed. The powers being worked with here were beyond either of their comprehension.

Other things were not. "Then we can discuss our next steps," D'ellian said with some finality. "These captains seem brave, but unready – but the Alliance has been dealing with these meddlers and manipulators for some time. These ships were deployed individually. I don't know if we can give them coordination, but we can give them the benefit of the Alliance's experience thanks to your databases."

 _Mchwa_ was _technically_ an auxiliary, not a KDF ship. It had information for their mission; and assembled files, but not the raw tactical data and intelligence digests of a vessel serving as fleet command, with information that could be adjusted into threat files for any ship under command. Until more arrivals came, there was only one source – the _Sparrowhawk_.

"There is one flaw with that plan," An'riel said. D'ellian could see where this was going, but the let the Romulan speak. "Accepting tactical data packages from a Romulan source, especially myself would be a serious potential data breech for many of these captains. I am not here via Temporal Defense; I was luring Daniels out to alleviate the destruction of a homeworld, by a tool he refused to relinquish as the trauma of _billions_ met his plans somehow." Her voice was full of loathing. _That_ pain was not histrionics, one only a Romulan or Reman could know. Or the Na'kuhl.

"But you agree with the necessity of halting the Temporal Liberation Front?" D'ellian pressed.

"Noye is a madman; his forces pirates and genocidal maniacs wrapped in noble-sounding goals," An'riel said. "Elements willing, they will not run free after this – freedom from meddling is a fine goal, freedom _for_ meddling must be fought. Procyon V is the death of the galaxy, if the Union, or the Alliance, or the Federation fail." _That_ was perhaps some histrionics; but there was a real core of determination there.

"Well, you can at least release the files to Chekov; he should know who is reliable enough," D'ellian said.

"True, but the best would be is if the _Sparrowhawk_ could simply be put in tactical command and provide that coordination," An'riel said. "But I cannot see, with things so tense, operational control being passed to a non-Starfleet vessel."

D'ellian had seen the specs on the command battlecruiser project – the double-nacelles made them easier to build, though the less efficient drives cost them in durability compared to real dreadnoughts with their huge warp coils. What they lacked in the assault role, was made up in their next-generation area control abilities. Their short-range sensors, communications links, and dedicated processors provided an admiral with an unprecedented ability to distill the chaos of a fleet battle and rapidly seize and exploit openings and opportunities, letting whole squadrons act as single units.

"True, though I'd be happy to tie into your tactical network," D'ellian said. After all, where the Federation opposed, Klingon and Romulan ended up together. "At least we can provide some sort of sharp squadron."

"Yes – we can let that run while we begin damage control, since your efforts seem to have ensured at least they _will_ fight for a future," An'riel said and tabbed the communicator, " _Sparrowhawk,_ this is Admiral seh'Virinat – begin download to this console, Alliance protocols, squadron level tactical precis and threat files on ships we encountered here."

"Acknowledged," came back a deeper voice. "Permission to back off another ten thousand kilometers? We're starting to detect a gravitational gradient."

The distortion had been continuing to gain definition and brightness, a baleful red core surrounded by a gleam of blue; an aurora, or maybe Cherenkov radiation.

"Granted," An'riel said, and closed the channel. "Elements, let whatever is left of cause and effect in this snarled timeline avert disaster," she prayed aloud.

The Romulan ran her hands through her hair briefly and stood up stiffly as she toggled a public address channel. "Attention: temporal travel event now at ninety-nine percent probability within next two minutes. All captains; please alert medical and engineering crews to standby and prepare for turbulence."

"I refuse to fall into powerlessness," D'ellian said.

"Powerlessness or patience?" An'riel asked, with a flash of irritation. "Whatever the original backup plan was, or manipulation to create the temporal defense, we were never intended to be _here_ at the backup plan. I think we are ahead and – Brace yourself!" she interrupted, grabbing the console.

Space shuddered, a wave of impact of unreality and probability washed over them, a wave very nearly real, but not quite yet. D'ellian could taste iron in the air, and blood of a dozen species, a glimpse of herself in some boudoir, or possibly the Great Hall of the Klingon High Council. As it cleared, she was still on her feet, solid. She did allow herself a bit of pleasure at the uppity Romulan had fallen in front of the console, but pragmatism led her to reaching out to touch the Vulcanoid's shoulder. Physical contact wasn't common for any branch of the species, and it tore her from whatever she saw.

Flexing her hands, as if surprised by her shape, she stood again at the console. "Heavy power losses registered, life signs are lower than expected from the other ships – medical emergencies being declared. Looks like mainly temporal ships – an _Avenger_ class is probably the biggest, and one of those new _Hestia_ escorts; looks like a _Varanus_ fleet support from the KDF slipped in – and, yes, coded transponder, there is a _Faeht_ out there."

The Romulan tapped on the sensor panel; despite whatever science was behind it, playback was easy to set up. Ships appeared – dodging frantically as their sensors registered the hazy time distortions of others near them. Several ships passed through each other – apparently not hitting, but close enough to affect their subspace systems, and as they resolved fully into reality, their hulls were wracked with plasma burns and spot overloads.

An'riel was recovering quickly, triaging emergency calls. The ships were actually doing almost as well, to D'ellian's surprise. The plasma fires ceased quickly – at least, it seemed, the vaunted temporal fleet wasn't in danger of simply blowing itself up before it go into action. It still didn't seem much of a fleet – ships simply hung where they'd ended after their rough passage, instead of adjusting their orbits to make support easier from the ships that had already been present. Space was a mad cluster of shuttles crossing over each other.

But shuttles far outnumbered ships. If D'ellian was reading the display right, they had only thirty or so ships made it, plus perhaps another ten other ships, also mainly Starfleet. Starfleet had reported there were roughly a hundred of these temporal ships, and Klingon Intelligence had indicated they were telling the truth, based on logistics information.

" _Concord_ , move thirty kilometers forward – one of the last tachyon sources is near you, please indicate if you need a tow," came the Romulan through D'ellian's musings.

"There are a few more,' An'riel said, clearly very distracted. "Trying to give them some space. The people who did not simply target the coordinates have been better about bringing other ships. They will need a departure vector. Traffic control is taking a lot of _Sparrowhawk's_ capacity, so having to run the tachyon traces from this board; it is not going spectacularly."

Apparently, An'riel had finished tying in her crew without telling anyone – if it would distress someone, not let them know. And it probably should, as where Starfleet was seeing one Romulan, there was almost a thousand backing up her words with deeds. Tricky.

D'ellian broke a bit a way to check the situation from her ship's perspective. seh'Virinat had just showed an ability to play with perception. By the time D'ellian was done with the status report, it seemed most of those smart enough to adjust their bearings had arrived. The Romulan looked exhausted – the automatics hadn't been designed for items popping into reality from spacetime, without any known vector. The future hadn't figured out everything, as was becoming increasingly clear. She looked at the recent arrivals, and thought she saw her arsenal growing.

"Admiral?" D'ellian said, breaking in. "The two that just arrived; one of those is the up-serviced _Galaxy_ variant, isn't it?"

The Romulan looked at the board, " _Galaxy?_ Oh it seems a _Yamato_ -class dreadnought; Starfleet considers it a different class. It should have been useful, yes. The hull has been heavily ionized and there are severe damage to surface members. Life support and engines are stable; but communications and sensors have huge gaps – pity, it would be an excellent command ship. It looks like they already released damage control parties, but I do not think we have time to bring it to full command functionality."

"But Starfleet considers them command vessels, yes? And the ship's captain is clearly competent and anticipated effects," D'ellian said, thinking out loud. "At least some of these fleet members anticipated the effects of time travel, and were in position to bring competent people."

"Yes – transponder shows the _Nagato_. That would be at Deep Space Nine if they originated from the same time frame. That would be Admiral Revka if it has full staff," seh'Virinat said. "The Admiral uses it a flagship for heavy assault missions, it is often under repair. She may not be there."

"Ah yes – Starfleet's barbarian Borg hunter, until they ran out. You know a fair amount on her," D'ellian observed.

"The Admiral is one of Starfleet's rank accelerated flag officers; her career is as short as mine, which was of some interest and comment when I was liasing with Starfleet." An'riel said, and continued, a note of anger creeping past kinesthetic and into audible. "Her efforts against Tal Shiar cells experimenting with Borg technology was also of personal interest."

That wasn't a surprising reaction. Ambassador Worf had observed after the Empire aligned with the Republic that a Romulan who didn't hate the Tal Shiar was probably brainwashed.

"Starfleet protocol would allow us to query if the ship is serving in a command role off its transponder," D'ellian said. "Is it not present?"

"The transponder is not, yes," An'riel said. "Though someone over there was prepared; they are already moving into position for repairs; or had the fastest diagnostic and part transfer in Starfleet's admittedly impressive engineering history." Done being glib, apparently, the Romulan added. "Most of their defense emitters are down – I can get a read; the flag bridge offices are at temperatures either Admiral Revka or a Vulcan who enjoys their summers at home is in command."

"But regardless, someone who would know the current situation and listen to logic, instead of see a barbarian and an enemy," D'ellian pressed. "And we can do it without interruption with my people at the door."

"I am sure she will be appreciative when we override an unfamiliar system to cause a site-to-site transport using a non-specialized control console," An'riel said. "With her engineering background giving her a thorough understanding of the risks."

"But you can?" D'ellian said, noticing she was still on the console.

"Already setting a biometric block and a coordinate routing," An'riel said. "But under advisement. What are your intentions? All these people, rescued from death and kept under stress – we are used to Admirals the age of lieutenants from the attrition of targeted attacks and replicator warfare. They will see a child."

"While with proper command this would be a very effective force, I have to believe that was never the intention – remove the sensors of a _Yamato_ , and you are left with a very powerful destructive force, but one that requires guidance, yes?" D'ellian says

"Wandering in the dark, crushing enemies as directed does match what I saw of Daniels," An'riel admitted.

"Yes, but he is not here, and the plan, of course, is flawed, living for some future we will never see and cannot anticipate fills our ideals. The _Nagato_ and… the _Fuso_ are the last to arrive. Perhaps he intended there to be no time to explain under circumstances, just give the mission orders and go. You noted there was a much shorter timespan before the future was somehow altered. Given the way Daniels operates, the _Nagato_ , with its shields and armor, would be guaranteed to survive almost everything- at least long enough for his vaunted timeline," D'ellian said. "After all, it alone would be too damaged to do anything but point at something."

"You _are_ joking," An'riel said. "The crew is already repairing its short-range sensors. It will not have its early warning capacity and may lack enough bandwidth for gross tactical coordination of a fleet, but it can still serve to coordinate and collate squadron information at the strategic level."

"But you and I are both Admirals, and understand a command ship is more than its computers –- it is also the flag staff, helping anticipate enemy movements, helping perform the dozens of monitor functions that require sentient oversight. The real-time tactical functions may be unavailable, and are missed, but there is much it can do as a force multiplier thanks to its crew," D'ellian said. "A flagship is more than a title, or a use for paperwork." An'riel nodded at that.

"But let us remind the Admiral her place is command and readying the fleet," D'ellian said. "M'ara to Dean – I believe you know the two ships that just showed up; could you ask their leadership to make an appearance?'

"Without a doubt – you have a plan?" Dean asked.

"Eventually," D'ellian promised.

"I will take that, at this point – Messier is arguing for a point-by-point evaluation of readiness to slow things down," Dean said with a sigh. "Dean out."

An'riel tapped her wrist communicator. " _Sparrowhawk_ , I think we have all the ships that will be here – we have Admiral Chekov's access code – please gather a capabilities estimate and prepare as a summary. Continue tactical precis."

* * *

 _Four hours until Ragnarok_

A short while later, a reserved window on the console started to beep for attention, throwing up a holographic image. "Energizing. No issues so far," An'riel said, "Pattern buffer holding and preparing materialization here – we have not discovered transporter repeaters yet, but this must be an expected practice here."

The megastructure was hundreds of kellicams long – D'ellian would prefer shuttlebays given the amount of power that must be flowing through the structure without repeater satellites. Aloud she remarked, "This is some Federation dominated future – perhaps they do some sort of complicated subspace fold mirroring for transporter repeaters rather than some simple satellite structures."

"Or wormholes," An'riel agreed with a laugh, "Called into existence at needed at ruinous energy cost, but keeping the view unobscured."

The console beeped again, and the familiar whine of transporter effect cut into being – louder than D'ellian expected, but there were two figures materializing. Admiral Revka … and Admiral Revka, though wearing only captain insignia. The lesser-ranked version looked more surprised than the older, who merely appeared calculating.

"Admiral, General, I take it this is a supplementary briefing?" Admiral Revka said coolly. "How long do we have before the operator notices?"

"It is an automated system," An'riel said. Both versions of the Starfleet engineer cursed briefly at that. "I apologize for the hijacking, but the temporal fleet is not as integrated as we had been led to believe."

D'ellian explained briefly, before concluding. "I have seen the sympathetic detonation of Spheres, we, unlike the timelost, were around for the Tox Uthat's activation and were part of those briefings. We understand the power being dealt with and can accept the plan, despite reservations – but we are used to our present and work towards a brighter future than this, having survived worst. These crews _are_ lost – and are stuck in the battles of yesteryear, seeking redemption by reliving the past."

"Our careers have been unconventional," the Admiral of the two Revkas said, "But I think you underestimate the Starfleet crews. These have always been the most dynamics parts of the Federation, willing to continue efforts to expand and improve."

"The transition has been stressful – but the crews aren't all just survivors from great battles," the lower-ranked Revka added. "I admit the Na'kuhl haven't given us the time to integrate the crews, but is an all-volunteer force dedicated to preventing just the terror of history and the future adjudicated by a single individual."

Nice speeches, D'ellian judged, she could see how they had risen in the Federation with their enjoyment of talking. "Regardless, we all have reservations about Daniels, but they haven't had the experiences to understand what Chekov is trying to accomplish. I would happily give his heart to the High Council, but whatever advantages he took, it was in situations where others were already interfering."

"If Daniels did see this as throwing ships against the problem, we can certainly improve on that," Admiral Revka said. "I can see him arranging the whole thing – since I was at the Tox Uthat retrieval from the Breen attack, I even have some vested interest." She pursed her lips, thinking. "But the enemy doesn't know his plan, and even if they do, we can enhance it." She paused, D'ellian counted it in her head. Sure enough on three, she continued. "You two interested in a team up?"

* * *

 _Three hours until Ragnarok_

Sending in the Revkas to separate Chekov out of the herd of polite arguing had succeeded and they'd managed to come up with a way of making the plan palatable, before calling all the captains together. D'ellian had sent her staff back to the _Mchwa_ to help finish repairs. An'riel lurked, quietly, in a corner.

"Captains," Chekov said. "With the advent of the _Nagato_ 's command facilities, we have the ability to coordinate our tactical data to some degree and analyze additional weaknesses. We also have enough ships to handle multiple objectives. Unfortunately, despite Admiral Revka's crew's efforts, they are unable to maintain operational command of all units. As such, Captains Messier and Tycho – I am appointing you to handle our flight wings – transporter assault directly into the Spheres has shown success in previous attacks. Break through their patrol lines and ready for ground combat." The two human captains, nodded, surprised, with far more determination than D'ellian had thought. Maybe there was something to the Starfleet speechifying.

"And yourself, Admiral?" Messier asked, unwilling to completely back down.

"We will be performing the original plan with a heavy strike squadron, using _Nagato_ as flag. I'll take the _Sparrowhawk_ and the _Mchwa_ from our allies for unconventional support and _Roland_ and _Fuso_ for a core in the battle-line," Chekov said, as briefed. "The _Enterprise_ will be the largest unit in the area and the focus of their attacks. Disrupting their strikes will help draw off other forces to allow your more conventional strike through."

"Nothing about these ships is conventional," Tycho muttered. "But their adaptive systems work best in a running battle, and I've gotten the tactical departments to look over the maneuver data the Romulan released." Admiral seh'Virinat merely nodded genially in response.

"Exactly – I am relying on you two to work on the best distribution of our forces – the Alliance vessels are willing to work under your command," Chekov said, tactfully skipping the background dealing that had taken much of the time. "So you'll have some cloaking capacity in your forces," he finished. The two nodded. "We've corrected the navigation issue and once you have your organization set, we'll prepare travel coordinates to the Battle."

"If you have the readiness reports," Admiral Revka said, "Captain Revka will take them, she has been working to distribute engineering and science teams to maximize combat systems and help prepare ships for the next transit." Tycho eyed her a little dubiously, but still nodded.

"We will meet again in two hours by squadrons for final traffic control," Chekov said. "Good luck everyone."

The group started to disperse, D'ellian drifting over to the side, watching the chaos for the moment.

She could feel the Romulan come up alongside. "Are Klingons so incompetent?" she asked, sounding cold, and grabbing D'ellian's wrist as she reflexively reached for her dagger. The grip was like iron – the Romulans didn't quite show it off like the Vulcans, but they were still heavyworlders, with the muscle to match. It did give enough time for curiosity to overcome reflexes before she broke the Romulan's arm.

"You are deliberately provoking me, why?" D'ellian said.

"As you were doing the same – amplifying divisions between the Starfleet officers," An'riel said, "Seizing the initiative to do so, disrupting your performance would have made things worse. Are Klingons so incompetent they must be kicked constantly?"

"No, but pain response is effective in the short-term," D'ellian said, slightly stung. "You've helped me, Romulan, moving the pieces around? Why the sudden pang of conscience?"

"Because I have seen real chaos and working against you then would have brought it here. None of them would trust me enough to build bridges n the time we had" seh'Virinat said, still gripping the Orion's arm. "You knew who to manipulate and how, you could have eased divisions, but you inflamed them."

"And removed the temporal fleet from Starfleet in the process – that ugly devil's bargain they were holding over our head, promised some future of Federation supremacy," D'ellian said. "They're not your concern – _yours_ is the Tox Uthat, not who lives or dies in some possibility in delivering it. Are you saying the Federation marching to some pro-Earth future is in the Republic's interests? Honor dictates I do not kowtow to it."

Grimacing, the Romulan released D'ellian. "Are there no pragmatists in the Republic?" D'ellian asked. This was a heroine of the Republic, but there was no way she could be this blind.

"None so foolish to call themselves pragmatists, when they gamble a necessary victory for some future advantage," Admiral seh'Virinat said. "You won, but only through forces that were not in your control, arrivals you were not predicting or had arranged."

"Oh, I would have won," D'ellian said, she could see it – and the Federation had stood in opposition to all her peoples so long she could not mourn. "The wave of unprepared, unorganized cannon fodder Daniels had thoughtfully arranged, dying bravely and nobly to save 'the timeline' as other forces moved into position – your ship uses fighters, surely you understand attrition? But you stand here, chastising me. You could tell Chekov there what I did – Admiral Revka has worked with coalitions before, she may even be able to undo this and form a true fleet, if she knew." The Romulan was silent. "But even for morals, you're not willing to risk this necessary victory, eh?"

"Honor dictates I do my duty – that is ensuring my people are not enslaved to genocidal masters, regardless of origin," seh'Virinat said stiffly. "But you are not quite as clever as you believe, and this is a dangerous mission – I believe you needed to know that, and I wanted to know."

"Which?" D'ellian asked.

"You are more Klingon than the Klingons," the Romulan observed. "That has been spoken in the Great Hall of the Klingon Empire. You are a Dahar Master, and a guarantor of the Empire's honor, and concerned successful in the standards of your own people. I needed to see."

"And?" D'ellian asked, she could guess where this was going.

"Why the Empire is always in danger of collapse," seh'Virinat finished. " _Why_ Vulcan should be considered as a model when we rebuild our culture. And why the Empire considers the Federation dangerous beyond realpolitik. Klingons are glorious, but glory always demands the short-term. It is a seductive notion; and those in the Republic Navy who have liaisoned with the KDF have said as such. My people must be more careful than to build beyond the next day as an ideal – and wanted to warn you I _will_ be watching for such in this mission; it is more important than you."

The Romulan wanted to walk away. D'ellian felt a brief urge to scream, but the anger at such observations had burned out of her long ago; she had plenty of such thoughts in her time. Orion honor was nothing more than profit. Klingon honor was legacy; better still, but obtainable to the meanest one willing to be brave and crafty. That was far better – and a race patient in the middle of their spider's web like the Romulans could never understand, really.

But the Romulans were good fighters, and the admiral had hit the salient point – Dahar Master D'ellian of M'ara had triumphed. The temporal fleet would be whittled away in their action – and the Romulan would have to keep such an eye on her to avoid being able to save them – with the Tox Uthat, as they both agreed, being the main goal. They'd gotten to live a bit longer, these Starfleeters, and now they would die far more gloriously.

It was win-win. She kept assuring herself of that. She had believed such before; she could do so again. And despite what the Romulan thought; there was still one arrow left in the quiver.

* * *

 _Minutes before Ragnarok_

D'ellian sat at a table with the other ship captains for the Tox Uthat group. Chekov paced before them. Within all, was still Federation blue, but outside, the stars were going out- thermobaric clouds coming into more and more probability.

All the technical aspects of war were in readiness as could be managed, diagnostics run, weapons charged, auxiliary craft on the launch rails, and frequencies aligned for the more exotic weapons. But D'ellian understood the benefits of a good rousing briefing, so had not complained when Chekov wanted the captains to meet face to face.

"Time is short my friends, so I'll make this quick," Chekov said. "The battle is not going well for us. We're outnumbered and outgunned. Our plans rely on the Tox Uthat. With it we can destabilize the Expanse and force the Sphere Builders to withdraw. There's only one ship with the power to use the Tox Uthat – the _Enterprise_. She must survive at all costs," Chekov admitted.

Captain Foch leaned forward, drumming fingers on the table, ready to get going. Both Revkas looked quiet and determined. The Romulan had her hands folded, inviting further comment. D'ellian affected faint concern.

Chekov looked at each of them in term, and then finished. "Today, we're fighting for past, present, and future, so fight hard, and fight well. Dismissed."

The group stood and made it to the transporter pad. New Khitomer vanished from D'ellian's eyes. With luck, the future would have a different shape when they were done.

The familiar whine of a refitted Klingon transporter greeted her aboard the _Mchwa_. K'Gan, Ch'gren, Thraak were there to greet her, not having normal posts. Sh'ket was as well, apparently having appointed herself liaison between her staff and the ship. "All is in readiness, Dahar Master, for you to take command. We await absolution!" the engineer clicked.

"Whatever sins remain, we will purge them. Together we will have victory, Sh'ket," D'ellian promised, though hurriedly. They hurried to the turbolift. The bridge was far more crowded than in cruising on the eve of battle – the centuries old design has many updates, but the bridge layout had never been updated for flight ops. The Xindi-Insectoids, with their hive lifestyle, didn't mind, but the lack of personal space certainly hurt the export market.

Adding four KDF officers weren't helping the crowding, but D'ellian wanted them close at hand if she needed a quick summary. She doubted it would be for very long, one way or the other.

"Exterior display view, rear quarter," she ordered. The glorious megastructure was still there, and she felt a thrill at it. Before it were the arrayed ships – a seeming history of Starfleet from the Four Years War until the 26th century, thanks to the various forms the 'temporal ships' could take. A heavy _Negh'var_ and a _Varanus_ support ship backed up one side with their firepower, while a _Faeht_ Republic warbird was lurking with the other wing to provide precision attacks.

Then there was those at the center of the screen – backed up behind her was the _Deihu-_ class _Sparrowhawk_ , hull lit with the reticulated patterns of an advanced MACO shield grid. As powerful a mass of metal it was, the _Yamato-_ class next to it dominated through sheer size. The _Nagato_ was still showing some hull burns – but fresh patches of equipment shone through wear replacement sensors had been hurriedly fitted. The heavy flares of its engine baffles showed its 'war emergency' construction – one of the last ships ordered before it looked like the Alliance homeworlds would fall.

"Forward view," she ordered. In front were an odd-matched pair. The _Fuso_ to port was the streamlined hull and cylindrical nacelles of the ancient _Gemini -_ class exploration cruiser, but it was merely a masquerade for the exotic _Sagittarius_ from the future. Captain Revka was apparently from a more peaceful timeline – given the emissions from the ship's weapons port, she'd thrown herself into this history's arms race with enthusiasm.

Captain Foch she knew, in spite of the problems the ship had. The _Roland_ 's field controller had been repaired, but Foch apparently disliked the molecular control that made the temporal ships resemble their long-ago predecessors. The _Paladin_ -class battlecruiser was the saucer plus nacelles design common to Starfleet combat ships, but the exotic curves, especially to selfsame nacelles, were the product of an engineering lineage that did not yet exist.

"Signal ready," she said at last, standing at attention at the back of the bridge. K'Gan and Ch'gren radiated eagerness – warriors ready for glory and to show up soft Starfleet.

Thraak hissed, "Admiral Chekov is signaling from the _Nagato_ , temporal telemetry being sent out – we have our navigation path, forwarding to helm." Whether Thraak was looking forward to it remained beyond her powers – he stayed with her, so she desperately assumed as such.

"Tactical view. Engage on signal," she said. "All hands – prepare for immediate combat." Such was expected, and she could feel the surge from the hundreds of Xindi-Insectoids on board, aggressive and bloodlust. She soaked in for a moment, barely hearing over general address.

"All ships – this is Admiral Chekov. Begin operation!" The two temporal ships forward's impulse engines flared as one – as their deflectors went through the mind-numbingly complex operation of engaging a temporal vortex. After a second, space flared horizontally as a hole in spacetime appeared – far larger than _Roland_ had managed alone – even the _Nagato_ would fit.

With a soft rumble, the rebuilt engines of the _Mchwa_ went into play as the larger capital ships behind them struggled to life. D'ellian's thoughts were more on the battle ahead.

* * *

 _At the twilight of the Gods; the Battle of Procyon V_

After a brief, eternal, discontinuity of a second – reality reasserted itself. Or reality of a sort. Tactical was a hash, of heat and radiation as the sensor teams struggled to make sense of it all. Thermobaric pressures from another reality, intruded on top of their own future. She felt no pressure or strange anomalies in the hull – _Mchwa's_ construction was living up to its builder's expectations. An alert showed their shield capacity starting to spiral down; the physical protection of the shields' emitters didn't extend to their manifestation.

Warp signatures popped onto the screen, with probability percentages that slowly crawled upward – _Fuso_ and _Roland_ were ahead, projected energy readings showing they were starting to compensate for the environment. Behind were _Sparrowhawk_ and _Nagato_ , both staggering but coming back under flight control.

Ch'gren, serving as engineer 'talker' reported. "Impulse capacity at twenty percent; we're adjusting the drive fields back into alignment…"

D'ellian frowned as sensors picked more consistent energy signatures out of the hash and flare of dying bursts of radiation from anomalies. Effective range was still measures in hundreds of kellicams. "Identify those in grid four-theta," she ordered. "Helm, bring us around, bearing forty-three mark twelve."

One of the Xindi started clicking but before a translation resolved she could guess. "Do not launch fighters – our pilots are too valuable until our sensors recover sufficiently to ascertain transporter locks," she ordered. Her staff was also working – she resisted the urge to have them take over the departments; Thraak had experience, but Xindi systems were somewhat esoteric with their biological components.

Some _very_ diligent Xindi were working down belowdecks, it seemed – the warp signatures steadied, and the percentages suddenly shot upwards as a match was found for the subspace flare in the battlebook. "Na'kuhl _Tadaari_ frigates," Thraak repeated.

"They're moving to intercept. Lock weapons as able. Full combat speed," D'ellian ordered, which was still adjusting up for local conditions. If the signatures had steadied; whatever maneuvering the frigates had completed were done.

Fortunately, the Xindi had way to even the maneuvering issue, and it was a smart enough weapon to not need a lock. "Biomatter projectile – target center ship and fire." A shudder ran through the deck as the mass drivers kicked it off. A few seconds later the projectile dropped off the screen as it detonated to release its payload. A few seconds after _that_ , the center ship started to slow, warp signature dimming, followed shortly by the other two.

D'ellian grinned ferally at that. "Full power to forward weapons," she said. The biomatter was an odd beast – almost intelligent, a strange piece of Xindi engineering, exclusive to the biologicals interwoven in their technology. But it was smart enough to stay cohesive enough to avoid being swept by navigational deflectors, while electrically neutral and slow enough to avoid most combat deflectors. And when it hit something, it fed, literally explosively, and sought out more prey.

It didn't live very long, which was probably fortunate, but it clogged thruster vents and impulse drives until it died – which meant, even still limping as their drives adjusted, they had the advantage. D'ellian plunged it to the hilt.

"All cannons at maximum firing rate –wide angle gimballing, crush them all before they can recover," D'ellian shouted. The crew's blood was up, and in the finest tradition, captain and crew fed on the mood – to hone to a perfect destructive blade.

The tactical view lacked the _immediacy_ D'ellian preferred, but they could reconstruct for a Battle Record later. An experienced mind could fill in the details; deflectors growing visible as the array of heavy Xindi plasma bolts exploded around them. These also had a biomatter component – but the fiery delivery system meant the effect was far short-lived. The Na'kuhl, however, choked on it.

Caught by surprise, with crews of auxiliaries whose eagerness did not cover their lack of formal training, the Na'kuhl could not compensate, align their shields and minimize the effect. Instead, they grouped together, pulses striking all, searing hull plating, overloading shielding. They could not compensate, but choked, and died.

The warp signatures dropped from tactical, and out of the heat of battle the available sensor sphere started to slowly expand. Suddenly, a host of alphanumerics at longer range started to populate.

"Feed from _Sparrowhawk_ is coming in," K'Gan confirmed. "Reading _many_ ships."

Several broke in their direction… recognizable as more Na'kuhl, but other dots broke after them, stabbing into them with antiproton beams – and their warp signatures were only theoretical. White Widow had come to reality, it seemed. She glanced, feeling smug, at _Sparrowhawk's_ signature on the tactical display. Powers not under her control indeed.

Apparently the Romulan had seen them too. "Several ships claiming to be 31st century vessels are moving to escort us," she reported. "They have current year seals from the Proconsul, the High Council, and Starfleet Command."

"It seems perhaps the future is not all so constrained in how the assist us?" D'ellian said with a lilt.

"More like they need our help," Admiral seh'Virinat shot back. "Our long range scans are coming in; we've found the _Enterprise-J_ , and she's in trouble."

* * *

Author's notes:

And the battles finally begin. D'ellian isn't really a nice person by our standards, or even hers. She'd like to be though, and that's important – and her objectives aren't quite the same as Federation Temporal Defense here.


	4. The Commander

At the Jaws of Fenrir

Chapter 4: The Commander

A retelling of the 'Ragnarok' mission

* * *

 _Ragnarok_

"Adjusting metaphasic shielding, cycling all emitters," cried out the _Nagato's_ chief engineer from the depths of the bridge. The air was hazy, a feeling of heat and heaviness, of _wrongness_ of being in the place. The big _Yamato_ dreadnought had emerged from a staging point in time to the depths of hell itself. Out there, the Sphere Builders – the ex-Tuterians, were making their grand ploy to conquer the Galaxy. They and others had been called from the past to defend the future, but the mission hadn't been going well even before this.

"Try the transporter distorters too, all security systems," the ship's commander, Admiral Antonine Revka ordered, maintaining an appearance of calm. Her skin was itching – they'd looked through what logs they'd had on the experience of the pre-Federation _Enterprise_ , but the status of the anomalies here was apparently different.

Tactical was nothing but fuzz – the _Nagato's_ sensors were in better shape than the last temporal transit, per diagnostics, but the _people_ to read and understand them were still recovering from entering a portion of space that hit you like a sledgehammer to the chest. A whole fleet could be achieving firing positions and they'd never know.

Tactical flared briefly. "What was that in grid three-eta?" she demanded. The pressure was starting to ease off a little – either their bodies were adjusting to the altering physical laws, or the shields were starting to have some effect. She hoped for both, but would take either.

"Playing back," N'Karon, her Klingon defector science chief said. Her voice gave no indication of pain, but she was still _that_ Klingon. "Passives picked up a directed energy charge; can't say what type, but certainly a weapon at that magnitude. We're starting to build a reference grid."

"Any communication yet?" Admiral Chekov asked; sitting near her on the cavernous bridge. This was technically his show, once they had an operational force for him to be in charge of. _Nagato_ was a glorified delivery service, if no danger threatened. When did it not, though?

"Subspace transceivers are passing their diagnostics," Chys'ette said. Antonine's chief engineer was good, but her expression was bleak. "But I'm seeing subspace currents and folds that _break_ every rule of how subspace is supposed to interface with normal space. It's like it's interacting with a different gravimetric profile than what's out there."

"That may be what's going on," Captain Takerra said. The Andorian flag captain said tapped her screen, and pulled up a set of curving lines.

"Is that our flight profile?" Antonine said with concern.

"Admiral, our thrusters are auto-compensating below the helm level, but inertial navigation says we should be fifty thousand kilometers from where we are, wherever this is," Takerra said.

"Yes, this is a battle on a different level than we normally face. But our science is advanced enough _can_ see it," Antoine said, cutting across the bridge. "Or at least the after-effects. And as long as we can get data, Starfleet can analyze it. Combine the flight control effects with what we're seeing on sensors – that should let us see the differential effect between the two realities."

"This will require constant integration," N'Karon said. "I will require computer core time normally resolved to tactical in these conditions."

"Do it, Captain," Antonine ordered. After a few moments, the pressure feeling starting to ease on the bridge, though not completely abating. The tactical grid slowly started to climb out of static.

"Okay, that worked – I'll need my teams to adjust the active emitters' waveforms," Chy'sette said. "Shields are leaking like sieves – the emitters' deflector function is causing more exposure to the thermobaric effects, and we're not going to be in position to compensate for combat damage as well as I like. The Sphere builders are generating an Expanse, Admiral. We're seeing radiation rise across the sector; there's a limit to what our hull and shields will take."

"Reroute power to life support and shields as needed. We're mobile and not choking," Antonine said. "I'll take it, pass the settings down to the hanger bay and launch flight one of runabouts."

"Situation report," Chekov interrupted. The communications lieutenant didn't hesitate.

"Starting to get communication reports from our squadron," Lieutenant Liess reported. "Patching through to the tactical grid though their data quality is also low. _Mchwa_ , _Fuso_ , and _Roland_ are reporting they engaged and destroyed a patrol squadron, and are sending additional contact reports. _Sparrowhawk_ reports minor casualties and is requesting to divert power for a wide-area scan."

"Casualties?" Chekov said, concerned.

"The anomalous space is apparently having a stronger effect on the Vulcanoid and Reman nervous system," Liess said. "Admiral seh'Virinat deployed teams to modulate their structural integrity prior to transit and several are down with synaptic shock."

"Granted permission for wide-area scan," Antonine said. "And pass condolences along." That wasn't a bad plan for insulation, Antonine reflected, with probably a better countering ability, but any mistakes in the skinfield dynamics were much more lethal.

The contact reports were starting to catch up to her overseeing tactical boards. Too sluggish, but these weren't normal conditions, so she'd be willing to give it a bye.

"What ships are those in grid eta-seven?" Antonine said. "Those warp signatures aren't matching the warbook."

"Feed from _Sparrowhawk_ coming in," Liess said. "Adding to our data. They're sending additional subspace data."

Chekov made an appreciative noise as tactical cleared up. Antonine breathed a sigh of relief as immediate space around them was clear of opposition.

" _Sparrowhawk_ is hailing, requesting Admiral Chekov – they are putting together the strategic view and have established communication with the other commanders," Liess said.

"On-screen," Chekov said. "Please pull up the repeated view from _Sparrowhawk_."

The split screen resolved. The bridge crew on _Sparrowhawk_ was about the sweatiest Antonine had ever seen Romulans, and several were showing signs of what looked like sunburn. The other half of the screen was also confusing – several ships were moving to flank their squadron as _Fuso_ , _Mchwa_ , and _Roland_ formed up now that the heavy ships were responsive. _Sparrowhawk_ had them listed as unknown, but a codicil showed _Mchwa_ was flagging them as friendly.

"Get General D'ellian in this command net," Antonine said, and nodded to the screen once the Orion was added; looking as smug as if she had discovered some new addictive, undetectable drug.

"Several ships claiming to be 31st century vessels are moving to escort us," Admiral seh'Virinat said hoarsely. The Romulan looked about as battered as Antonine had ever seen a Republic or Imperial officer. "They have current year seals from the Proconsul, the High Council, and Starfleet Command."

"It seems perhaps the future is not all so constrained in how the assist us?" D'ellian said with a lilt. Antonine glanced at Chekov, who shrugged minutely.

"More like they need our help," Admiral seh'Virinat shot back. "Our long-range scans are coming in; we've found the _Enterprise-J_ , and she's in trouble."

"Please send visual," Chekov said, sounding dubious.

"If you want," the Romulan said.

Antonine leaned forward despite herself as the image appeared, blurry. A vast saucer, with no secondary hull she could see except perhaps a spar, with the odd sweeping nacelles the temporal fleet ships were using, curved to far greater tolerances than ships of her era. Her shields were flaring, fending off impacts from what looked like fighters. She seemed to be englobed by what looked like heavy runabouts.

"There she is, this era's _Enterprise_ ," Chekov said. "We should be within a few light seconds. Why the heavy distortion?"

"There is a network of dreadnoughts surrounding her, launching some sort of attack we cannot identify, but is causing a subspace effect" Admiral seh'Virinat said. "Warp signatures and power emissions are similar to identified Sphere Builder ships from the encounter in the _Nerada_ incursion timeline, though much stronger. _Enterprise_ is under conventional attack by what we believe are Mirror Universe escort squadrons; they are not running IFF beacons but match Federation ship classes from our time period. We have yet to identify the Terran fleet, but are having some difficulty separating their signatures from Federation ships. KDF and RRF are also present; and match our warbook profiles."

Those weren't fighters, those were _starships_. The scale was… the scale was impossible. That knocked even D'ellian on screen from her smugness. "How could they possibly need our help? What could threaten _that_?" the Orion asked.

Takerra said, "There's a lot of enemy ships out there. The _Enterprise_ looks like she might be getting overwhelmed."

"A better answer may be how did the battle ever get close," Admiral seh'Virinat said dryly. "Our long-range scan is limited to three light years because of the anomalies; no other systems are in range but we are able to check star charts. Procyon V is the Procyon V in the Andorian home systems."

"This is the Sirius sector block?" Antonine asked, in disbelief. The Sphere Builder attack was engaged against the Federation core worlds; its longest and most dedicated members – and with Starfleet's heaviest infrastructure. "Where is the fleet?"

"I do not know. I am sorry," seh'Virinat said with a shake of her head. "Starfleet ships are engaging, but everyone is a configuration in service in 2411."

Chekov said, "I was briefed on this – the rest of Starfleet in this time is cordoning the anomalies across the entire Milky Way galaxy. A single ship was a much better delivery vehicle for shutting down the Sphere network, but the Terran Empire's interference was never anticipated – or these other ships."

"Sir," Liess said, "One of the ships moving to escort is hailing – a _USS Longevity_."

"Admiral?" Antonine asked. Chekov nodded.

The screen switched over, and Antonine felt another shock through her system. The face was dark and Trill; with their usual lines of melanin formations down the sides of the head, and an old friend who'd moved on to better things – and apparently ranked up.

"Vice Admiral Dunwen?" Antonine asked. "Your last message didn't say you had a promotion. Or were from the future." Dunwen had been Antonine's first science officer, grabbed out of the rapidly-winnowing officer pool on Earth Spacedock after the Vega disaster. She'd wanted a command, but been too flighty. Experience fighting the Borg had tempered that, and made it less of a problem to Starfleet Personnel.

Also, a week ago, she had been a Rear Admiral, and even in the current age of mass combat and attrition, people didn't promote that fast.

"It took a few years, but not as long as you're thinking. Hello Admiral Revka," Dunwen said warmly. "I can't say exactly when I'm from, but in your timeline's near future – you recommended me for this ship, actually. How we got them I can't actually say yet, but you told me if you weren't sure which way to go, there was money under the blue rock."

"That takes me back," Antonine said – in fact, under a large tree on her parents' property back home. "If I told you that, did I tell you- "

"Something about counting past the first three rocket ships?" Dunwen said. "You didn't explain."

"Not going to right now, either," Antonine said. It was, perhaps, not the sort of story Admirals should be known for in their distinguished position. "It's the Admiral Dunwen I know, or a close equivalent, Admiral Chekov. Luckily for _Enterprise,_ the cavalry has arrived."

"We're more than cavalry," Chekov said. "We have the means to put an end to this whole conflict – the Tox Uthat. All ships – this is Chekov," he said. Liess scrambled to set an all hands. "Protect _Enterprise_ at all costs."

"Understood, Admiral," Antonine said. "Squadron from up, delta pattern seven. Launch auxiliaries into escort pattern. Full impulse." The _Nagato_ trilled slightly as runabouts lifted off their rails. Around them, space started to get crowded as the _Mchwa_ and _Sparrowhawk_ launched their fighters.

Their sensors weren't clearing, but they were learning this area of space's tricks, and getting a much better picture. The other temporal ship groups were aligning with the ships that apparently, their time's Alliance had sent forward. Or would send forward – Antoine was not looking forward to the Temporal Investigations debriefing for this one.

The battle was going to take place over light minutes, but the Iconian War had helped smooth out operational practices for coordinating battles with singular objectives, but long-separated distances. This was a lot easier; as they weren't on the defensive, and had only a single point of concern: _Enterprise_.

"Sphere Builder picket line's coming out to engage," Takerra said. "Admiral; their course is as straight as local space allows."

"Admiral Revka," _Captain_ Revka was relayed in by Liess; who was probably due for a command position after handling the communication work today. "The Sphere Builder exotic weapons we encountered before were only in larger ships; there may be mass limits."

"I guess they hoped we wouldn't know that. They're not as good at fighting in space as warping it," Antoine said. "Admiral Chekov, permission to disperse to an englobement pattern? I was hoping to avoid slowing our reaction time earlier, but if we can hit them hard now, the ships they're readying to micro-jump won't have nav data to map to."

"This is your part, Admiral Revka," Chekov said. "Fight your ships."

"You heard the man, Takerra – ready the ship for separation and emergency evasion," Antonine said. "Squadron: Pattern Eta thirteen. Fire as weapons bear after mark ten. Permission authorized for offensive deflector configurations. Runabouts forward -disperse warp plasma at mark plus twenty. Mark."

The squadron spread out, trading maneuver for concentrating power to a point without giving it a free shield. General D'ellian's fighters also raced forward; the Xindi were eager for blood. Apparently, they'd upgraded the replicator systems on the small escort beyond the standard-issue the Xindi had in their catalog; _Antonine's_ runabouts were their tweaked-up power systems were left behind.

That was fine – the _Yellowstones_ required some very exotic dilithium configurations and highly subspace-resonant warp plasma frequencies to pack in so much power. For impulse-fights, they could disperse some of the plasma; causing the same sort of distortions and resonances that had thrown off the Alliance ships when they entered the anomaly. The glowing arcs of plasma could slow a ship as much as warp plasma accelerated by _Nagato's_ massive warp core and dispersed through her nacelles. Taking advantage of that; they also mounted chroniton scattering warheads on micro-torpedo launchers; the reference frame shifts they caused effectively slowed ships forward.

It was one of Antonine's best tools for making her overengineered monstrosity worth all the dockyard's pain, and worth more than, say, the three cruisers worth of maintenance it took. The _Nagato_ had been designed to hold in the center of assault fleets to smash fortifications; everything else was secondary; that did make it a decent command ship still, but her engineering team's best efforts still left it lumbering.

The _Arehbes_ destroyers ahead were much simpler in purpose, though exotic in design – escorts with staying power, intended to deny or take a section of space. Their antiproton beams reached out as the first fighters entered range – D'ellian's crews were on the ball and pulled the fighter pilots out as their ships burned around them, but it gave time for the follow-up punch to arrive. Antonine nodded at the power readings – they were antiprotons, exotic, and could do devastating damage, but the power delivery wasn't anything on what the Herald dreadnoughts had output.

She snapped out orders. The runabouts were curving around as called; their shields sparking. Their larger size let them stand up to a starship a bit longer – and they'd managed to get closer. The destroyers' shields sparkled as they ran into the plasma fields, and their impulse signatures ran up the spectrum as reality asserted itself over the tricks starships used to move without carrying their weight in reaction mass.

 _Roland_ wasn't far behind; the future design was nimble. She'd seen Foch's moves in combat before; and it was still like seeing a prize fighter compared to her more straightforward style. The _Paladin's_ thrusters flared; drifting off expected courses; presenting strong shield points where weaknesses had anticipated. Space around it was riven with gamma radiation as glancing blows spilled off its shields, and the destroyers, barely maneuvering, had been tricked into keeping the weaknesses in their own shielding; the necessary byproduct of firing and seeing out; in one place too long.

Phasers lanced out, less exotic but high-energy nadions were still deadly; beating along and through shielding; interrupting power flow. The traditional Starfleet follow-up of photon torpedoes exploded along the ventral sides of the destroyers. Sensors showed atmospheric bursts as hull integrity dropped. Then sensors twisted briefly – with extra rents suddenly ripping into the Sphere Builder hulls. Some use of the temporal core on board had caused the chaos to _stack_ on itself.

Antonine wondered again how the hell Foch had slipped through the Iconian War without her hearing of him.

The destroyers staggered to concentrate as the rest of the ships slid around it – the 31st ships keeping to the flanks for the moment; all the captains knew what were coming. Antonine's squadron had to remove this small picket group still though. More fighters were coming online, Xindi-Insectoid pilots back into action eagerly. Her own runabouts had run their distraction purpose, and thankfully her own transporter crews had been on the ball. Several serious injuries – and only two deaths; so far the transporter was running smoother than their shields.

Antonine's alternate counterpart in the _Fuso_ and the _Mchwa_ weren't far behind the _Roland_. Her other self was running some countermeasures to make _her_ look like a flagship – extra targeting analysis and communications to be more threatening. She was running antiprotons; and if her targeting wasn't Foch's artistry, it wasn't the work of a fool; and helped carve down the rest of the shields.

D'ellian's had her own touch, but was eschewing Foch's maneuvering subtlety for rapid-gimbal cannon mounts for high rates of fire. Her exotic plasma burned and seared; cancelling out structural integrity fields – even metal would ablate and burn, if hot enough. Her fighters added their identical, if smaller, fury – and Sphere Builder ships died. _Sparrowhawk_ 's torpedoes arrived to find only the shockwaves of warp core detonations, and _Nagato_ had only gotten a few token phasers bursts in.

"More ships inbound," Takerra said. "Vorgon squadron ahead – looks like the Sphere Builders let it go first; their ships lost the nav feed." Pinpointing warp insertion and drop was hard without an exact 'weather map' of the final location from the perspective of normal space. Given the chaos of subspace, the fact the response force was only scattered over five million kilometers was impressive.

"Let the timeships isolate the Sphere Builders," Antonine said. "Form back up to delta-four for main squadron. The goal is _Enterprise_." The '31st' ships peeled off – working to hammer the Sphere Builders while they were isolated and couldn't support each other, while Antonine's squadron formed back into a more standard arrowhead.

The Vorgon group outmassed the previous picket group significantly, with power readings showing at least one battleship-sized ship at the center. Their movement was also showing more cunning as they formed up; with a more advanced approach pattern as they deployed their own support craft.

"Fascinating pattern – I would've expected a stronger approach if they had access to the Terran tactical manuals. I rather wish we knew where they came from," D'ellian said over the channel. "If they're even from this galaxy; most species that survive to spaceflight avoid autonomous unmanned weapons." She was musing aloud, but also tracing movement patterns. The forces were maneuvering to meet, but would take a few minutes to match up.

"Or if they even will be from this galaxy," Antonine said. "The plan looks good but I think move the _Fuso_ ahead first – Captain Revka, you still have those sensor ghost probes?"

"Yes – good against pirates, and they don't have the crew to react fast." Antonine's duplicate said.

"What makes you say these are pirates?" Chekov asked.

"Vorgon ships are a bit of a mismatch – their energy weapons are very effective against shields; but chroniton torpedoes' particle scatterers take a lot of space that could be used for yield. It's not an effective destructive combination," Captain Revka said. "I had some downtime last week and had been working on the whys since the Vorgons had joined the TLF. Assuming energy weapons are still easier to change out than feedback generators and torpedoes, I'd say they were originally built for decapitation strikes against carrier groups, not plucking valuables off ships."

"But with tetryon weaponry; that's better at battering shielding and keeping it down," Chekov said. "I see what you mean about cross-purposes. I was wondering why Noye was keeping the Terran Empire a secret; they are Cossacks, yes, but their bizarre professionalism works in battle at least."

"And also means most of Noye's forces are irregulars, partisans, and pirates," Admiral Revka said. "The most effective force will be the Terran Empire, andwe can match them."

Well, they had before. Privately, she tried to ignore the weight of the small shard in her pocket. Right as she was pulled into a fight to save all of history, the Prophets had apparently decided to return an artifact from one of the Orbs she had donated. At the time, she was being transferred to the Borg front and, besides her own distaste at nursemaiding timeless aliens, the thought of the Borg unlocking part of the capabilities of the Orb of the Prophets was terrifying.

"True," Admiral seh'Virinat acknowledged. "Which is why they have not reacted yet – we are picking up communication traffic from other sections of space." The rebuke was polite but clear.

"They're gathering more operational information while their allies die," Antonine said. "But the faster we move the less they can hammer the _Enterprise-J_. Have you figured out why she isn't firing?" The Romulan shook her head, but offered no further comment. There was the optimum way of doing things, and the _right_ way – the Romulans had experience with both.

"Captain Revka; hold off on the scrambler probes. _Sparrowhawk_ , advance – Leeta's seen your ship fight, you can bring that deflector into play," Antonine said.

"Understood – all ships please adjust tactical control channels for coordinated firing on their lead vessel," Admiral seh'Virinat said. _Sparrowhawk_ 's huge battery of computers, sensors, and communication links gave some interesting tricks for timing – both for massing torpedo salvos and letting each ship in sequence fire to speed up enemy shield emitter burn-out, and leave them no openings to counterfire.

Takerra nodded. "Ready here," Antonine said.

 _Sparrowhawk_ flared her engines, the vast wing moving ahead, flanked by her Scorpion fighters. Tetryon beams started to hammer and flare at the shielding; kicking down the subspace structures that kept the shields functional. Antonine's status repeaters from _Sparrowhawk_ could see shield strength dropping rapidly as they shuffled unused capacity from the other shields.

Plasma beams, bright even in this space, lashed out briefly – then stopped as the narrow Vorgon ships flared their shields, adding a subspace mirroring effect that would send an unwary opponent's own energy back at them.

Instead, hyper-plasma torpedoes, the Romulan shipyards' most famous product, roared from the launchers, and then roared again. seh'Virinat's crew were veterans all, and the cycle time on the launchers showcased it, one set barely clearing the exit port before another was on the driver rails. Unfortunately, the torpedoes were slow – and local space was causing them to waver, but they would survive to impact on the enemy squadron given no further opposition.

The Vorgon ships deployed their harasser probes, unmanned fighters, and gnats against the larger ships. Tetryon beams lashed out from them, breaking through the plasma torpedoes containment fields; dispersing them to rapidly cooling hydrogen. The probes started to dart forward toward their squadron lingering at heavy range, before coming to a stop; and then heading back towards their mother ships, in spite of their best efforts. A temporary hypermass, induced into reality courtesy of _Sparrowhawk's_ generators. Under the shear, the small probes tore, crumpled and broke.

"Data feed correct; inertial dampers adjusting for gravity change," Takerra said.

"Bring us into optimum weapon range," Antonine said. "Torpedoes – full spread."

The larger ships were wallowing as they struggled to escape 'up' out of the singularity, being drawn down on top of each other. Quantum torpedoes raced from _Nagato_ and _Fuso_ , a mass cluster fire set for proximity detonations to take advantage of the tightly packed opposition. Foch and the _Roland_ hammered the nearest escort with a stream of photons - his tactical background was showing itself; _Roland_ 's engineering team had their problems, but the tactical teams knew their drills. Scorpions and runabouts darted around, taking opportune pot shots at weak shields.

"Feedback mirroring ending," N'Karon said.

"All ships – cleared for energy fire," Antonine said. _Mchwa_ and its fighters opened up in immediate response, plasma fire adding to the general chaos. The Vorgon escort _Roland_ was savaging broke; its antimatter containment failing. It hung in space, briefly, fires lashing out and dying as oxygen was consumed.

Its antimatter cells would go in seconds if they couldn't get them ejected – and as Captain Revka had noted, these were just pirates. There was opportunity here – _Sparrowhawk_ and _Fuso_ fired directed tachyon beams from their deflectors. They had no interaction with regular matter, but brought shield emitters to effective capacity where they hit. The two ships had done some additional exotic physics tricks – _Nagato's_ shields were actually showing higher capacity after the passage of the beams near them. Something for later.

The Vorgon battleship's shields flickered and diminished, but the ship was too big to be knocked out from what was still the opening rounds of this engagement.

"Overload forward beam banks," Antonine said. Most ships, maxing out weapon emitters to right under their melting point looked dramatic, but caused massive undervolts in all the other weapon banks until the capacitors recovered. _Nagato_ 's bulk and phaser lance meant she had capacitor cells to spare. "Get that battleship's shield down _now_ ," she said.

 _Nagato_ lurched as her forward phaser arrays went to maximum effort – temperature alarms wailed, and several beam elements tripped out of the arrays as they went over their capacity. Antonine had faith in Chys'ette however. The range was still a bit long, but the heavier phaser beam cut into shielding; nadion dispersion showed that their thrusters were off line from electrical overloads, but the forward shield stayed up.

The escort detonated, antimatter hitting matter as power failed; an explosion that could depopulate a world. The battleship's shields were enough that though they fell, the ship came through with light scarring. The rest of its squadron took the explosion on fresh shields; the light ships losing shields and having their sides irradiated, but staying combat capable; though perhaps not habitable in the long term.

" _Sparrowhawk_ , coordinate torpedo firing," Antonine ordered. Tactical information raced out through the squadron net, faster than humans could adjust too – fighters and starships firing in a syncopated rhythm too precise for organics.

Space between Vorgon and Alliance forces was lit, briefly, by a stream of deadly orbs. The usual metaphor was a string of pearls, but Antonine preferred thinking of them as shock diamonds; the supersonic passage of a shuttle in atmosphere.

The torpedoes began to impact – _Sparrowhawk_ providing timing and tying tactical sensors of the entire net letting them hit even harder than normal. Forcefield-enhanced hull metal splintered and broke under the strain; leaving the way open for the following torpedoes to hammer into vital systems.

The battleship was dying, but slowly, in spite of the firepower. The singularity winked out as _Sparrowhawk_ had to recharge; and the Vorgon ships scattered, seeing what was coming. "Engage saucer separation," Antonine said. " _Fuso_ , finish off the battleship. _Sparrowhawk_ , turn off, your fore shield's about to collapse. _Mchwa_ to port, _Roland_ harry them to starboard."

Affirmations came, as the Romulan ducked off to recover, but turning only slowly – some chronitons had apparently gotten through. Rear plasma batteries stayed engaged, but Romulan doctrine kept most firepower concentrated forward. With the cloaking device a death sentence by the spheres, it was a less sensible design decision.

Antonine was employing a few design decisions of her own. _Nagato_ gave a lurch as the stardrive and saucer split. Both sections' impulse engines were, damningly, more efficient separately, though it took some extra equipment to make both structures combat capable. The Vorgon light ships, which had been forming up into two separate smaller formations; dissolved in panic as their own attempts at englobement being met.

"Keep us on minimal aspect. Warn squadron, heavy fire in twenty – wait, they're turning out more – twenty-five seconds. Rotate shield frequencies – make their tetryons work for it. Phaser lance, wide-aperture mode, both groups," Antonine said. "The Terrans really gave them no specifications at all, did they?"

"Use it while you can, Admiral," Chekov said. "Our greatest strength is all our forces coming together." Briefly, Antonine glanced in his direction, surprised. "I am not Daniels, Admiral," Chekov said primly. "My goal has always been protecting the timeline against interference as best possible, a task worthy of great bogatyrs., I will admit."

"We have a _Paladin_ with us – I understand that is nearly as good," Antonine said. Waiting a beat for Chekov's surprise. "Four years on Earth, Admiral, for the Academy; I was at Kamchatka for my hazardous environments course. It really wasn't that long ago" Chekov nodded.

"Takerra – both sections, phaser lance cleared for action," Antonine said, getting back to the matter at hand.

The Andorian nodded, with a faint grin. The Academy wasn't that long ago for her, either, and there wasn't a tac cadet who didn't admire when they got the chance to fire a _really_ big gun.

 _Nagato's_ biggest weapon and reason for being fired – twice. Thanks to Starfleet over-engineering, her saucer could carry enough power to fire; though both blasts were far more diffuse and weaker than the full lance. Weaker, as the Vorgons discovered, was a relative term, allowing _Nagato_ to hit both escort squadrons with a mailed fist.

There were consequences; amber lights broke out on the EPS grid – this was still alien space, with alien physics, and the phaser lance pushed their power systems to the limit. "Port power converters two and three in the main hull just blew – decks nineteen through twenty-three are on auxiliary feeds from frames thirty to seventy! Feedback harmonics in central warp nacelle; cutting plasma pressure to compensate!" Chy'sette said.

"Drop pressure and feed through the battery deck converters, and route from there. Safety margin override permitted on transfer conduits. Switch life support over to the emergency grid," Antonine said. "Tactical and movement analysis for opposing squadrons."

The damage to the opposition was worse. The smaller ships staggered, and, already moving to regroup, broke into flight, scattering for safety. Takerra pointed out the obvious. "If they kept concentrated on us another minute, they could have let the anomalies finish us."

"I doubt they were willing to draw lots for whichever half of them we'd finish off in the meanwhile. Keep some torpedoes ready if any of them look like they're changing their minds," Antonine said. "Let _Mchwa_ keep harrying the ones bearing forward; get _Nagato_ back together and let's see if we can stitch the shields back up. Authorized power transfer from secondary systems. Reform other ships – please assemble squadron and fleet status."

" _Sparrowhawk_ reports shield harmonics stabilized at low levels," Liess said, "They have enough movement data they're identifying Terran formations."

"Have them send any ID transponders they got over; even if they're pretending to be their Federation counterparts," Antonine said, "We've tussled enough with Leeta's own power bloc we may be able to identify commanders."

Chekov was examining a repeater display as the scattered engagements around the Spheres reported in. "We are doing a fine job keeping them distracted, Admiral – compliments to all the crews. It seems the Terrans are unwilling to completely commit." Chekov swung the repeater around for Antonine to study.

"True, we haven't gotten a clean look at Leeta's _Enterprise,"_ N'Karon said sadly. "Very few dreadnoughts. Admiral seh'Virinat mentioned they did engage briefly with the aid of timeships; perhaps they did more damage than they realized."

"They're definitely still acting like a reserve force while the Sphere Builders do whatever they're attempting" Antonine said. "Leeta's good at talking a game, but she's always had difficulty getting the heavier ships to commit, even with the difficulties of keeping ships from popping back to their universe."

"Experience means they know better than to charge towards danger?" Takerra said, amused. At this particular moment in maneuvers as they bound their wounds for the next round, _Nagato_ was the closest ship to the _Enterprise-J_.

"Well, it is a _Mirror_ universe; their fight-or-flee reaction must be inverted," Antonine said with a light laugh. She spoke louder, then, more seriously. "But I just want to remind you all; the Empire is aware of the stakes as much as we are, and somehow have the same weapons technology we do. But we're going to win. The diversity of our people, our allies, and the tactical flexibility that the Iconians honed; these are factors. But each one of you is here, from Andorian to Xindi, because there is something larger than yourself, and you know that. The Terran Empire never will have more faith than the reach of a club."

"Well said," D'ellian commented over the comms. "The Klingon Empire is often seen as our social mores overlaid on the Federation; at least in your popular press. That shows a poor perception of both, I feel."

"It's easy for Starfleet to lump aggressors together mentally," Foch said. "It's an all too human feeling."

"Which you're in the minority for once," Captain Antonine said from her bridge. "I'm stealing that, by the way, Admiral." Antonine nodded.

"Duty drives us all," Admiral seh'Virinat said – a touch solemnly. The Romulan animist religion had some very strong points on personal responsibility, Antonine recalled. "The keystone remains the Sphere Builders and Noye; they are the true fanatics. I am sending everything I have on that dreadnought net, but the _Annorax_ has not made an appearance yet. _Enterprise_ has refused tactical data feeds and direct hails; I believe they can see us, but are trying to avoid timeline corruption. We are rebuilding our shielding, but slowly."

"We're in a dangerous spot there," Chekov said. "Can you tell what the dreadnoughts are trying to do?"

"No, though it is not a combat formation; they are lacking support and flanking vessels. What they are generating appears to be a static warp shell of tremendous power. Space inside is significantly calmer. There appears to be power transfer and tractor beams holding the structure together; and they are projecting secondary force shields under their deflector screens." The three Starfleet commanders whistled at that, as did most of their bridge crews.

"It must be exact positioning if they can throw that sort of spare power around," Antonine said. "Even their skinfields have to be running low with that sort of shielding."

"It is definitely protective shielding underneath the deflectors; not some space warping effect; we are getting a clean read. I think I may be disappointed," the Romulan reported dryly.

"I can live with foolish demons," D'ellian said. "Our main concern is getting to _Enterprise_ before the Terran fleet mobilizes properly. Sooner or later they'll concentrate and crush the harassment groups or charge in on _Enterprise_."

"Agreed," Chekov said, "Admiral Revka, your best judgement where to try the breakthrough. Communications, advise our, ah, escorts to rendezvous."

"I don't have much judgement to give," Revka said quietly. "We haven't seen these ships in action before and we're not sure what they're doing."

"True, but you have far more combat experience than I do," Chekov responded, equally quiet. "And a reputation for luck."

"That's daunting, coming from the weapons officer on the _Enterprise,_ " Antonine said. "Luck is a reputation you get when you don't rely on it." Chekov nodded in agreement at that. "Assuming they are trying some sort of attack; this is a running battle then – attack the one closest to us on _Enterprise's_ rear port quadrant; it will be 'focused' forward, whatever they are doing."

There was a round of acknowledgments. "Best speed then," Chekov said. "I know how weakened our defenses have gotten, but we will not require them much longer."

* * *

Shields had been rebuilt across the squadron, a little, by the time they reached combat positions again. The temporal ships strange molecular control seemed to counter the anomaly effects; their shield emitters weren't near overload in the same manner as _Nagato's_ , and were doing nearly as well as _Mchwa_.

The Xindi ship was on point. The Orion Dahar Master had clearly been shipmaster enough to get a real feel for its maneuverability envelope, and had the Klingon love of fighter craft. She was up to something of course. She was non-Imperial in Klingon service; she _had_ to be up to something. She'd convinced Foch to help her in some way on it as well, for the moment. It was tied to the additional temporal ships that had appeared in some way; which meant Antonine had wearily cleared her schedule for an Intelligence debriefing to go with the inevitable chat with Temporal Investigations.

She probably had a chat with the dockyard establishment too. They already had done an emergency replacement of most of the short-range sensors today, and the shield emitters were probably following them to the recycling pile. Chys'ette had left; one of the power converters was back in circuit, but the conduit network was strained at the best of times on board.

 _Sparrowhawk_ would be joining them in the yard; the command battlecruisers were tough, but not as much as their size would suggest. Since that was true for Romulan ships in general, _Sparrowhawk_ was doubly rattled – her shields were barely holding integrity, and Admiral seh'Virinat's face had been pale as she had reported their status.

She'd order it off, but given the anomalies, there was nowhere truly safe. If they realized the command net was directed through it than _Nagato_ , the ship would be isolated and destroyed – keeping it closer to danger was actually keeping the Republic ship safer. For now, but she was definitely keeping it in the back.

"Open fire with conventional weapons as we enter range," Antonine ordered.

The invisible line was crossed; energy and torpedo fire shot out from the small squadron and their auxiliaries, splashing against the deflectors on the larger enemy ship. The shields shimmered, dispersing the weapon fire, but Antonine could see on visual the glassy sheen of a force field beneath the deflector. Antiproton fire started to return, splashing against the wildly twisting _Mchwa_.

At closer range, Antonine could get a better look at the dreadnought, and the engineer in her balked. The connections between secondary and primary were tenuous, a long projecting forward sweep, surrounding and nestling an independently rotating sphere; with additional projections of armor. It was like some animal with folded fins or wings, but evolving from an impossible biology.

It was almost a shame they'd have to kill it. " _Sparrowhawk_ , get us fire concentration set up," Antonine said. "All ships, engage."

The squadron moved in; guns on rapid fire as they poured the fire on a stationary target – deflectors wavering on it; moving off to take fire on alternating shields in a textbook assault pattern.

"We are not taking down the backup shielding fast enough," Captain Revka said. "We're pounding it, but none of our fire is reaching the hull. Even the temporal core overflow is getting stopped; there's more to that shield."

"We cannot get a full analysis of the secondary to counter more indirectly," Admiral seh'Virinat said. "Their deflectors are wavering, and we are detecting strong gravitic effects. I would not recommend trying an englobement."

"No," Antonine said mildly. "And if we move much closer we will be in fire range of multiple dreadnoughts."

"We could hammer each other for hours," Foch said. "I do not see how we can slip a ship through."

"Their objective is the same as ours," Antonine mused. "They remain focused on _Enterprise_. We have to presume the gravitic network is connected, or they would spread this invulnerability to other ships. I think we need to let a card slip. Dyra, please head to main weapons control, and modulate our weapons to fit the Tox Uthat's profile." Chys'ette looked worried, then grinned as she left the bridge.

"Ah-hah!" D'ellian fairly crowed.

"Admiral," Chekov said with alarm. "The Tox Uthat's structure is uncertain; we cannot risk straining it!"

"We won't," Antonine said. "But we need to give them a better objective – we have records of the Tox Uthat in action. If we mimic it clumsily, so much the better, we look more like a tempting target."

"And if removing it from the gravitic net does not cancel the additional shields?" Chekov asked. A reasonable point.

"Is _Sparrowhawk's_ singularity at charge?' Antonine asked. Admiral seh'Virinat merely nodded. "Retain it, please. Admiral, we will beam you there, and _Sparrowhawk_ will make a run under cloak to deliver the Tox Uthat through the gap."

"Given our current distance, Admiral Chekov, I believe enough of the crew will survive to succeed, though you will need to arrange other transport back," the Romulan said.

Chekov nodded, and said firmly, "I understand."

* * *

The modifications; mainly visual, didn't take that long. _Sparrowhawk_ crept closer as the backup plan, as planet-rending power poured futilely on their target.

"We're ready," Chys'ette reported. "I think we've reinforced the power grid enough, with both sections, to avoid another converter blowout. If you can give an extra minute before trying a shot, I would prefer it."

"Wish I could, but no promises," Antonine replied. "Takerra – fire as we bear."

The lance shot again, _Nagato's_ structure vibrating; it wasn't moaning yet, so at least the structural integrity fields were holding out. The vast beam appeared on screen; connecting them – though with odd chromatic auras around the edges of the beam that weren't normal.

"Forty percent loss of effective energy delivery," Takerra said.

"Holding, for now – if we don't have to take too much to the shields we should handle the harmonics," Chys'ette said.

The enemy ship's shields flickered and held. Then, it suddenly shuddered; briefly, like an afterimage, Antonine could see a web of lights briefly on her eye before they faded away. Lurching, the dreadnought turned to point to them, drifting out of formation.

" _Enterprise_ is increasing speed," N'Karon said. "The other dreadnoughts are accelerating to compensate. Some very odd power readings. They're angling towards us; I don't think we can outmaneuver them."

"Slow to half impulse, pump up the forward shields. Make sure we're recording – get a reading on those secondary shields," Antonine said. N'Karon nodded in response.

"All ships: let's start with the fighters until we can see their tactics," Antonine said. Fat runabouts, bulky Scorpions, and the slim claws of Castrois formed back up and roared forward, a terrifying assortment, firepower blazing.

 _Nagato_ lurched, and Antonine frowned. The auxiliaries had plenty of firepower, but weren't very tough. The dreadnought wasn't even targeting them, staying focused on their ship. And unlike their enemy, her ship was suffering bleedhtrough.

"Radiation alarms – evacuating deck four, section fifteen," Takerra said. "Switching forward bank to port weapon control for the moment." Antonine nodded. The inner hull hadn't been breached yet, they were able to maneuver enough to keep specific spots from being focused yet. They were losing a straight slugging match.

"Admiral; those forcescreens have definitely stopped regenerating. We're beating them down. Scans improving. Seeing secondary systems on the dreadnought getting power," N'Karon said. "Some new waveform forming."

"Do you have a focal point for the target?" Antonine said.

"It looks like it should be coalescing on their shields, but I'm not seeing any change to the energy structure of space there," the Klingon said. She loved answers, but mysteries and the process irritated her. "There's something to the pattern that looks familiar, but we aren't getting any matches on the computer search."

"Check against the tactical database, then – maybe something they picked up from the Terran Empire," Antonine said.

"Widening search – oh, something from recent files. There's a match for the parts that are missing. Part of the waveform that's dropping out from scan matches some of the large area subspace energy sumps in local space," N'Karon said, finishing more hoarsely. "Admiral, they're- "

"All ships!" Antonine snapped. "Emergency evasive – they're building an anomaly!" The attack force on screen broke apart as they scattered, but not soon enough.

Space went orange and hazy, like a tainted version of fluidic space, washing out from the prow of the bizarrely built Sphere-Builder ship. It washed over and through the Alliance craft; auxiliaries spinning out of control, trailing plasma from ruptured manifolds. It washed through the bridge; causing consoles to spark from spot overloads as the laws of physics fluctuated. Antonine could feel her gorge rise, pressure pressing down on her again, before letting up a little as her biochemistry and nervous system caught up with the laws of the place. The could survive, for the moment.

"Get us clear – wait, no, security teams to alert posts!" Antonine said. "Takerra – hammer it! Chys'ette, make sure the lance isn't going to overload and kill us; but I still want to fire it"

Chekov was apparently able to go native with transporter buffers in this time period, he'd pulled a phaser rifle out of empty space – she'd been wondering where the Tox Uthat was hiding, and would have to have a nervous breakdown of what sort of degradation effects transporter stasis would have on a quantum manipulator. He wasn't far behind either – _Nagato_ was no longer a hostile environment to the Sphere Builders, and they thought the ultimate weapon was on board.

"Chekov to all ships – beam reserve security teams to _Nagato_. We are expecting boarders! Set phaser frequency overphase to two mark sixteen on the beta axis!" he ordered. He stood up and moved closer to Antonine's chair as she fiddled with her assault weapon. "The Sphere Builders try to have the best of both worlds; they will try and keep phased from our space to avoid our weapons; we can use this." Behind her, she could hear the tromp of regulation footwear as security moved from ready positions to cover the bridge.

Sure enough; two strange ghostly figures materialized on the bridge by the security station. Takerra kicked herself backwards as three security guards drove them back in a crossfire. The best firing positions were in the midst of the best bridge workflow; so it required some forewarning, but that was what training was for.

" _Roland_ hailing," Liess shouted through the carnage.

"Tactical control to auxiliary! On screen," Antonine shouted as she and Chekov helped pour fire in. The Sphere Builders were writhing, like bad holograms.

"You all right?" Foch asked. The man still looked composed, but his bridge was filled with haze and was on emergency lights.

Antonine rolled as one of the arms of her command chair was vaporized by her, lighting her personal shields up with excess energy and debris. "Surviving," she said calmly. "We could use some extra security, they have to be making a go for antimatter containment."

There had been a time, at the Academy, when she'd been assured most of the life of Starfleet wasn't combat, even in wartime. As she fought interdimensional aliens on the bridge of a converted deep-space explorer in a time not her own, she had to consider that, perhaps, Starfleet's statistical model was flawed.

"We're having trouble with the impulse engines; we can't move into effective transporter range," Foch said. He winced in sympathy as antiproton tore across the bridge. " _Mchwa's_ dropped some off and is moving in."

"Keep on the dreadnought, then," Antonine said.

Chekov may not be up on all the modern tech, shields and buffers aside, but logic he was good at – and with a better shot than Antonine could manage, knocked the gun out of the last Sphere Builder's hand. After all, if it was going to cause damage, it couldn't be phased. Antonine charged to cover the distance

" _Mchwa_ is moving to cover," N'Karon said. She glanced over as the Sphere Builder gaped before being hit in a shoulder tackle. "Nice shot, sir!"

"They've got those high-power engines," Antonine said, moving to get the attacker into an arm lock. There wasn't much muscle mass to them. "Hold _still_ ," she said, "I have questions." She turned briefly, and the Sphere Builder flickered, moving away from her. "Liess, can they give us a tow?" She worked to track the quick-moving alien with her gun.

"I'll have them run the numbers," Liess promised, taking a pot shot with a hand phaser at the moving Sphere Builder.

"Give up," the invader finally advised. "The timelines move in our favor. _Enterprise_ will fall, we will be avenged!" The humanoid flickered, like a hologram going out of phase – which was apparently true, as the next round of phaser fire splashed harmlessly against it, merely burning through the carpet and forcing the security team to back up as nadions ground out against the deck plating. Something else was burning; there was smoke wafting through the air and the tang meant they were on emergency environmental at the moment.

" _What_ vengeance?" Antonine asked. "I've read the Tuterians file we reconstructed; we wish no one to the Borg; and we looked once we knew, but we couldn't find any of you to help. If you'd come to us, the Federation would have tried to restore your biology!" She was frustrated, and had to understand. Xenocide was too vast not to have _some_ fault to correct, or the Federation would literally be dealing with that for all its history, however long that looked to be.

"Lies!" the Sphere Builder cried immediately, and with full assurance. Antonine's heart sank. Behind the mad creature's head, N'Karon was holding up fingers as the security team finished adjusting phasers again.

"Then we'll have to keep doing this," Antonine said. She suddenly felt too tired to continue, and nodded to her security staff. They fired; and the alien screamed, 'static' mixing with the orange glow of disintegration, and was gone. The bridge was quiet except for the crackle of something still burning.

"Manual fire suppressors," she snapped across the silence, and went back to her chair, biting back a curse as she remembered it was a wreck; giving of itself to protect her. She covered the anger by speaking louder as extinguishers went up on one of the backup environmental stations. That cleared the short; the air started to clear a bit.

"Return tactical control to main bridge. Status report," Antonine said, leaning on the remnants of the chair. Chekov turned to offer a hand, saw her face, and thought better of it.

Chy'sette went to one of the consoles that had been vacated during the fighting. "Heavy damage to power distribution systems – the Sphere Builders phasing seems to have been especially intended to interfere with EPS conduit constriction fields," Chy'sette said. "Phaser power is at sixty-percent optimal, with burn-outs of strip elements. Torpedoes functional. We have full shield coverage, but very weak. Our cooling system is heavily strained by the thermobaric environment. I can't recommend firing the phaser lance. Impulse engines are at forty-percent efficiency, warp drive is off-line."

"Long-range sensors are down. Short-range active sensors only have forty-percent coverage around the ship," N'Karon said. "Passive coverage at eighty percent. Subspace transceivers are on-line, but we had a chambers coil overload; we can't propagate a signal beyond five minutes."

"How's their dreadnought?" Chekov asked.

"Putting on screen," Liess said. The enemy ship was still there, and firing, though not at them. Their allies' efforts had diverted its course. The Sphere Builders certainly seemed _distractible_ at their moment of triumph.

It looked like some pieces had been taken out of it, but its design was so alien it was hard to tell. _Fuso_ was snagged in a tractor beam by it, _Roland_ still leaking from the impulse manifold rupture. Foch had the shuttle bay doors open; and a heavy phaser turret rolled out, also adding to the pressure. Small explosions were detonating against the dreadnought's forward shield; mines it looked like. Briefly it froze, caught in a spider web of light – someone was using Tholian-derived technology, but the ship was too big to be held for long.

"Tactical," Chekov said. Antonine gave a brief sigh of relief as she counted the ships were still there. _Sparrowhawk_ was at the edge of weapon's range, apparently taunting – Admiral seh'Virinat had apparently refitted her ship's engineering bays to derive multiple fleet support platforms, and they were keeping the dreadnought annoyed.

"Ah, that's why our shields are up," N'Karon said, "One of the platforms has an ablative gravitic deflector capacity – its extending it to us." Another platform, caught in a navigational tractor behind _Sparrowhawk_ was keeping the dreadnought's shields from rebuilding thanks to a blaze of tachyon, as _Sparrowhawk_ dragged it across two self-replicating mine fields.

The rest of tactical was a mess of fighters; though their icons were dropping off and reappearing; their shields weren't lasting long in this anomaly, and they were having to have their pilots pulled to new craft fairly quickly.

"Dahar Master D'ellian hailing," Liess said. Chekov nodded.

" _Nagato_ , _Mchwa_ ," she said tersely, "I am pleased you are all alive. Their force fields are being rebuilt and limit our ability to damage the ship; it seems to have a cost elsewhere. _Enterprise_ is accelerating."

"They're _very_ distracted then," Antonine interjected.

"Yes, difficult to form a tactical pattern against an enemy distracted by every passing fighter," D'ellian said. "But they are trying a conventional battle, holding us in an anomaly, and building that shield, on this one ship. During the boarding, we were able to get scans on their _other_ dreadnoughts."

"They're spread that thin?" Chekov said.

"Admiral, if I may?" Antonine said, holding the chair a bit tighter – something had nearly gotten through, but a thought had occurred. "Helm, get us on that thing's tail. Chy'sette, start venting plasma from the warp nacelles; we need thermal capacity. Liess, all captains." The ship shuddered slightly; something _was_ going out of sync now, as _Nagato_ purged plasma pressure from the warp nacelles. There were some power capacity issues with _not_ keeping them charged even in dangerous space, but they wouldn't need power much longer.

"Both sides are nearly at a breaking point, but I think we have better engineers," Antonine said as an opening. "For a group of Sphere builders; all their forces have been arranged to be an opposing force; where interactions hit, at least for their specialty systems and the spheres – their viewpoint is alien and their view on force concentration seems to be."

"You want to go to englobement tactics against a numerically inferior foe?" D'ellian said, guessing the trend immediately.

"Yes, they keep throwing stuff in one direction at us – and we let them since those gravitic feeds – but those seem to be reaching capacity; while meanwhile our energy reserves and everything else are decaying in that anomaly. Its deflectors are secondary; the main threat is a force screen; and that's what we need to overwhelm – don't let them concentrate deflectors to improve defense, just force that secondary deflector to collapse – don't give it anywhere to rebuild from."

"I see the logic, but it's a bit of a dice throw," Foch said. "While it may work, we may not have the force remaining to overcome what they have left in reserve."

"True, but their focus on us is weakening their hold on _Enterprise_. And that's the real important part; we can slip the Tox Uthat on a runabout if we have to," Antonine said. "If _Enterprise_ can't reach firing positon, what happens to us is unimportant, as we will never be. But it seems every ship is important to the circuit, so…" She traced suggested, movement patterns, the other ship-handlers adding their own. She nodded.

"I have no objections," Chekov said, face set grim. "Begin full attack on mark."

"Reconfiguring ship to offensive mode," Captain Revka said in agreement. "Stopping fighting the tractor, overload the shield matrix for defense, everything else to weapons on mark."

"Coming about. Setting torpedoes to high yield, bringing singularity generators to full," Admiral seh'Virinat said. "All fighters off the rails on mark. We have little shielding, but I have a few proposals"

"We'll try a close-range to break that tractor, Fuso. Scrambling everything; attack plan dagger – vent impulse coolant at a killikam on mark, ready our won tractor. Kiss those genocidal madmen's hull," D'ellian said.

"Ah yes, your engines are special, weren't they?" Foch said. "Maximum cycle to weapons, target chroniton generators, initiate decay pulse on mark."

"Oh, really," Antonine said. "Admiral Chekov; going to adjust the timing a little then," she sketched a slightly delayed movement plan set. Takerra looked at it, then gave Chy'sette an appraising look, and shrugged. The chief engineer gulped at her screen as the flag captain sent the plan her way.

" _Nagato_ coming around, launching all auxiliaries on mark; and will fire phaser lance if target is immobilized," Antonine said simply. "Pull back and reform for engagement, all ships." The Alliance squadron movement pattern broke apart; but all headed towards the same position, back before the dreadnought.

* * *

Space combat was normally an elaborate dance; a thousand variables usually invisible behind the scenes. Today though, they were going in at the ranges most civilians had been trained via action holovids to think space combat took place at. The generated anomaly was eating at their weapon energy along with everything else. They were

"We're down to a slugging match," Admiral Revka said, mainly for Chekov's benefit. "They're not going to break and we can't, so it's down to attrition, but we can limit their power."

"Shields at twenty-six percent effectiveness, and they've thrown some spare duranium over those micro-fractures," Takerra said. "Weapons back up to ninety percent in the forward arc – that trick with the engine coolant worked to clear some of the heat load, but the capacitors are rotting out from it; I hope you weren't planning to get in combat next week."

"Next week I hope to be a couple hundred years ago," Antonine said. "We were already going to have to get help on the repairs, and it let the main weapon coolant be cycled solely to get the lance in operation."

"I'm amazed you cut so much time on your engineer's estimate," Chekov said. "I have an old friend who'd be proud."

"Nothing against my chief engineer's talents; but the engineering department's job is to keep the ship's running well as long as possible. I'm flag staff now; I've learned sometimes you have to burn through all that margin; a ship's a wonderfully complex organism, but if I must burn three years off some capacitors to save people; the ship's a lot easier to fix than lives," Antonine said.

"All ships report ready for action; under the circumstances, Admiral," Liess had to editorialize a bit.

"Continue engagement," Chekov ordered.

They reformed, this time, _Sparrowhawk_ in front, with _Mchwa_ behind, then _Nagato_ , then the temporal ships. They'd taken the brief lull to ready more auxiliary craft, but they wouldn't last long in the anomaly. It was long enough to get their torpedoes out of the tubes, and divide the enemy's fire. _Sparrowhawk_ took only part of the forward arrays of the dreadnought, and its shields flickered under the strain, little left.

In response, it fled, but in the more Republic way than a cloak-out – its singularity pulsed, briefly overlapping the ship; a temporary wormhole. _Sparrowhawk_ was spat ahead, behind the dreadnought, but the point singularity left behind tore and slowed the enemy ship. Stuck on its previous vector, it shuddered, as a gleaming web of lines surrounded it, slowing it further. The web mines' life was brief, their tiny power cells exhausted trying to hold such a large ship. The Romulans started to turn, their weaker aft beams digging in. More combat support platforms deployed, adding to the chaos.

The succeeding ships, meanwhile, were giving everything they had left in their tubes and banks. Expecting the singularity, their engineers could tune their ships to ignore it. _Mchwa's_ weapons blazed, snatching pilots safely out of space as the rapid-replicated containment on their Castrois decayed in the anomaly, and throwing them into newly built fighters and back in the fray.

In seeming irritation at this, the smallest ship to threaten it, the dreadnought unleashed its exotic weapons; golden beams of chronitons accelerating entropy in local space even more. The small carrier staggered; impulse coolant trailing, being caught in the singularity, hull plating streaming away in tiny glittering fragments to whirlpool around the point-mass. The ship was insulated against anomalies, not the very forces of spacetime. The old gods of the Xindi turned; slowly, to punish their worshippers.

But the Xindi ship was captained by a Klingon; and they took pride in the killing of gods. A sensor distraction buoy rolled out of its hanger bay, limiting return fire until the escort carrier could roll another shield facing over. A tractor beam lashed out as well and attached – thrusters flaring, nudged the Sphere Builder ship closer to the singularity. Its shields held under the strain, but the force screen underneath sparked and wavered. Then, _Mchwa_ redirected its fire.

 _Mchwa_ was capable of bursts of intense efforts from its engines, and was low mass enough to maneuver tremendously when called on. The coolant wasn't nearly as caustic as the warp variety, but let lower-grade (and less mass intensive) radiators handle the heat load by having a tremendous heat capacity that was gradually degraded.

What happened when the thermal capacity was reached was spectacular, as the exotic compounds liberated all that energy in a go. The singularity, and the Sphere Builder ship, were wrapped in flames.

"It's stopped moving – phaser lance, now!" Antonine ordered. " _Fuso, Roland_ , your turn as well!"

The temporal cruisers had a lot of tricks; with temporal cores, and ship systems that could, to some degree, rebuild themselves for differing combat conditions. Given a specific enemy and the temporal core having a chance to charge, they could unleash devastating beams of raw entropy, the force of chaos itself. It unmade enemies a molecule at a time.

Now, from three sides, the dreadnought's shields flared. Raw chaos rubbed and degraded the shields and force screen port and starboard, while the devastating phaser lance linked _Nagato_ to the Sphere Builder ship. The dreadnought staggered, coming to a relative stop under such fire power. Given the singularity and the fire, it seemed the enemy ship was already dying, but it remained, seemingly inviolate, in the storm. They couldn't hold this for long.

But Antonine had known that. It was also a ship surrounded; and while none of the ships had quite the long-range sensor and deflector power of a dedicated science ship; four of them were from Starfleet or Federation member worlds, and the fifth specially configured by a captain whose curiosity had helped ravage the Tal Shiar. Their sensors weren't as good, but there was plenty of space for analysis on board, especially with all five having their astrophysics specialists working together.

They just had to hold out a bit longer, and trust in everyone doing their parts. The lance continued to fire, at a slightly lower yield that let them shovel power enough in the capacitors; the importance here was appearance, to some degree, forcing the Sphere Builders to defend against, what they believed, was the Tox Uthat. Now the only trick was if _Nagato_ could survive.

 _"_ Ship power reserves at sixteen percent – auxiliary generators are going off-line from thermal load – environmental reports they can maintain conditions for forty more seconds!" Chy'sette said.

"Keep holding!" Antonine said.

Something ruptured, she could feel it, a coolant line had burst a few decks down, shock reverberating through the deck. She could only hope it wasn't an occupied compartment.

"Emergency fault! Torpedo tube off line, the superconductors are giving out in the weapon spaces," Takerra said.

"Keep the lance up!" Antonine said – in front of them, the hologram of the main viewer winked out; the sensors blinded by the glare, relays to the other ships starting to give out from the heat, but she still had tactical, and she could see the secondary shielding had definitely started to drop on the dreadnought.

"Those gravitic beams have definitely peaked – we have their centers finally!" N'Karon said, triumphant. "Transmitting instructions!"

" _Sparrowhawk_ is firing!" Takerra said shortly thereafter.

"Cut the lance, emergency repairs! Get me torpedoes!" Antonine said with relief. Chys'ette found, somehow, some circuit left unengaged and the viewer came on in time to see it.

This was it – throwing everything they had at once had forced the Sphere Builders to dig deep. and with the ship immobilized, it was possible to track the center of the energy beams connecting it. _Sparrowhawk_ had used its engine core to jump, leaving its deflector charged for this. The induced gravity well had no mass core left behind like the singularity, but was broader, and more calculated to cause shear.

The purple waves, the eye assigning some color to disturbed space, appeared, spreading from the center point; briefly, several orange lines appeared, connecting the dreadnought to the rest of the web, which was also highlighted. But where purple touched orange, explosions happened – energy forced to resolve itself early in reality instead of the expected receivers.

The dreadnought staggered, stricken, deprived of its support, and then its shields winked out, not just the secondary, all of them.

"Torpedoes – beam them aboard if you have to!" Antonine said. Similar orders seemed to be shouted elsewhere – _Sparrowhawk_ and its fighters were hurling glowing green orbs of plasma, a steady paced string, easy to ignore their city-wrecking power until they exploded against naked metal. Bright photons and quantum torpedoes came from the temporal ships, as D'ellian simply did more of what she had, biomatter plasma burning and insinuating itself into whatever gaps in the hull plating it could find.

 _Nagato_ … lashed out with phasers. Antonine turned to look at Takerra, who merely shrugged. Apparently, they were out of miracles at the moment.

It was enough, though – the dreadnought's strange, floating together sections started to drift in other directions. Whatever power was controlling it was broken, and Antonine thought she saw several bright objects shoot from the hull. With a lurch, she could feel the tightness on her chest diminish; the concentrated anomaly originating in the dreadnought dissipating.

"They dumped their antimatter, Admiral," N'Karon confirmed.

"What's going on in the web?" Chekov asked.

"Getting telemetry," N'Karon said. "We're seeing the gravitic links are down – there may have been backlash, the power is down on their fleet – except, yes, it looks like _Enterprise_ is building power. Took some effort to distinguish the point source from the surrounding concentration. Subspace structures seem to be changing, but not sure how yet- "

A bright light flashed across the screen, interrupting N'Karon's report. When the light faded, space still looked the same; the strange roiling energy instead of stars. Except it was a lot _emptier_.

"Where is the Sphere Builder fleet?" Antonine asked. Space between them and _Enterprise_ had just been emptied.

"Nothing on our scans," N'Karon said. "Significant expenditure of power from _Enterprise_ , her warp signature is down by half."

"Admiral, were you expecting this?" Antonine asked. Chekov shook his head.

"All captains request by Admiral seh'Virinat," Liess said.

"Go ahead," Chekov said. "Order all ships to continue to _Enterprise_ – we should take advantage of the opportunity." His voice was somewhat dry, though that could be the effects of the anomaly.

"Within our limited scan radius, we cannot detect any of the warp signatures from the Sphere Builder ships surrounding _Enterprise,"_ seh'Virinat reported. "My CIC is reporting coordination has dropped across the enemy fleet significantly, many portions are seeking to break off, though the Na'kuhl contingent is still engaged, but seems to have their command channels disrupted."

"Admiral Revka," Captain Revka said, "Our energy scans weren't getting anywhere, so I did a scan for mass." She stopped briefly, wincing at something off-screen briefly, and tapping something in her console. "Sorry Admiral, still getting everything locked down," Captain Revka said. Antonine nodded at her duplicate. "We didn't detect any, but the graviton flow didn't match our earlier findings."

With the pickups directional, the other captains turned to give orders, not picked up. Antonine suspected what was up. "You did a spectral scan, then?" she asked.

Her counterpart nodded. "Yes;" she said, "As my science teams can figure." She stopped. Sivkans did not go pale, but could look queasy. "The random concentration of metal content in local space has increased by approximately the same amount as the Sphere Builder fleet ensnaring _Enterprise."_

"The whole fleet disintegrated," D'ellian said, disbelieving. "And they need _our_ help?"

Chekov said, "Remember whatever balance was against _Enterprise_ thanks to the Terrans. We appear to have shifted it back in Starfleet's favor. From these power readings, I doubt she can do it again and fire the Tox Uthat."

"The _Alliance's_ favor," D'ellian said pointedly. "And catastrophically so."

"Admiral," seh'Virinat said, also seeming icier than a moment before. "With our scans cleared by several megatons of metal, we detect transporter activity traces – _Starfleet_ ones. The Terran Empire has boarded _Enterprise._ No enemies currently in weapons range of _Enterprise_. The _Annorax_ has not appeared on our scans, and other forces are scattered. Our other ships are starting to move in to join us. _"_

"We've done it, though," Chekov said, not shaken by his allies' discomfort. "Commander N'Karon, I'm sending coordinates to your console, there are several auxiliary power rooms we can use with the Tox Uthat."

"All right, I'm going with you," Antonine said. Maybe it was the century difference, a time before replicators and the modern mastery of matter, so all seemed miraculous to the security officer, this casual removal of so much life, even genocidal life. "Command team to transporter room three to escort, security teams to reinforce _Enterprise_."

"You're not leaving me out of this one, Admiral," Foch said. Captain Revka nodded as well. The two non-Federation captains merely stood, arms folded. Antonine wasn't inclined to argue, that blow had been without mercy.

"This is the end, and I don't intend to lose because of carelessness," Antonine said. "Gather your strike teams and we'll try to distribute reinforcements. All ships will conduct emergency repairs and try to rebuild shields. Watch for that Terran fleet to make a move until the other ships can gather. Hopefully they'll stay terrified of _Enterprise_."

The channel closed. Chekov, to Antonine's surprise, said softly, "I know I am."

* * *

 _Enterprise_ was still not communicating with them, but dropped shields on request. The transporter effect dropped from Antonine's eyes, the more aggressive hums of Klingon and Romulan systems also fading away. She looked around, briefly – for a mission for time, each of the captains had come in person, with some of their top personnel. She'd brought her best as well, Takerra, Chy'sette, N'Karon, and Galitan.

They'd beamed into a small hallway, barricades had been set up – possibly quick replicated or holograms, with a small group of Starfleet personnel behind them. The uniforms had changed, but apparently the phaser rifle had evolved into its most useful shape in their period. The looked up, smiling in acknowledgement, but apparently were under orders not to speak to the downtimers.

"So few?" D'ellian asked. A Xindi walked beside her, clicking with amazement. Her other staff was more focused, in guard positions, and it looked like her other self and seh'Virinat were inspecting the doorframe.

"The fewest life signs were here, for good or ill," Antonine said. "We've sent security personnel to help elsewhere as well, but this seemed the fastest." D'ellian nodded at that.

Chekov materialized the Tox Uthat from the buffer. Admiral seh'Virinat looked over at the faint sound of a transporter buffer, and gave Antonine a significant look. Her older self glanced up as a force field shimmered around the hatch for extra reinforcement, and her eyes widened. Antonine made a brief calming gesture.

D'ellian wasn't feeling so politic. "That thing is delicate enough to synchronize with stars. It spent centuries in a swamp and had its matrices battered in a transporter buffer. Does it work?" she asked.

"Well enough," Chekov said. "I we can get it tied in."

Takerra said, "The engineering center isn't far, Admiral, but I'm reading multiple enemy lifesigns ahead. We'll need to hit them hard and fast, before they can beam in reinforcements."

"Weapons fire?" Antonine asked. Takerra nodded.

"Ready weapons and move out," she said. Takerra's tricorder beeped, and up ahead, one of the hatches failed, pouring out enemies. Briefly, she noted the space didn't seem big enough – some sort of intraship transport? They had to hurry. Then combat was upon them, and she keyed her buffer up as she ducked, near misses sending her personal shield sparkling.

The _Enterprise_ crew had been arrayed the wrong-way, but showed why _Enterprise_ was a proud name in any century, rapidly leaping the barriers. Antonine meanwhile, reached in her bag of tricks to deploy a portable force shell, a wall of light, as additional cover. It started to fade almost immediately. Leeta had sent her best, apparently, and equipped them to match.

So were the Alliance, fortunately – several officers behind her threw grenades, and she heard the whirr as a micro-rocket was launched as well. The explosions scattered the Terrans, and Antonine tapped into another part of her buffer, slapping together the connections that brought it to life. This gear wasn't intended to run long, but ease of not carrying several complete turrets and ten-kilo power cells on her back was a bigger concern for her.

Several other phaser turrets opened up as well, but the first wave had apparently been intended to die, and several specialists were pouring out of the room, starting to assemble their own field equipment.

Smoke, already starting to crowd the air from near-misses and energy grounding off, suddenly whirled to the ground unnaturally; slowing down their effort to assemble their own equipment. The ground flamed and sparked, an induction field making the area lethally warm. One in blue, wielding a tricorder, moved to counter, and suddenly froze; a stasis field, courtesy of a small hover drone. Antonine looked over – her counterpart and the Romulan had moved up as well.

Foch was practically whistling as he tossed another grenade into the melee, then paused briefly to kneel, lining up a shot through a scope – Antonine wasn't familiar with the equipment; it looked organic, or possibly a prototype, and the rainbow energy it shot wasn't immediately identifiable. The human it hit lost his shields, and then _blurred_ briefly, before falling smoldering, armor looking corroded. Foch's crew, had finished deploying other cover and sensor drones, and were using similar gear.

"Chroniton weaponry," Captain Revka said to Antonine, confirming her thought. She worked a computer on her armor briefly, and began assembling a force-wall of her own as Antonine's approached collapse. Chekov, and the Tox Uthat, were wisely behind her, giving fire support.

The air was thick with smoke and energy beams of all description going towards the Empire, being matched by an array of high-powered phasers. Two officers, dressed in red and with officer's knives, tabbed an override – their armor was equipped with some sort of accelerators and they pulled out of the gravity zone, drawing nanopulse weaponry, glowing.

Antonine kicked her turret briefly, hitting a selector switch. This model had been a gift, specifications from the Republic for thanks for some of her efforts against the Borg. Along with the regular cannon, it mounted a plasma flamethrower if enemies tried to rush. These two did, and regretted it. The only thing that could be said was that it was short, and Antonine felt a rush of embarrassment that she'd been mentally condemning Foch's gear.

"Meeting aggression with aggression," D'ellian shouted. She was firing heavy antiproton bolts downrange, her face obscured by a holo-targeting assistance matrix. "Appropriate against barbarians." She pulled something out of a pouch, looking like a power cell, and slotted it in her armor. Her shields glowed green, and she vaulted the barricade towards the force wall. Slowly, too slowly.

A few of the Terrans took advantage of the shot – their phaser hit, and with a deep, echoing howl, a plasma bolt, like lightning, shot out amongst the Terrans, the wrath of judgement.

The remaining Terrans, seeing enough of them had fallen, broke and headed back into the room. The Alliance forces pursued, but no one was in there. Foch after a moment, consulted with a Tellarite engineer, and they deployed a scrambler.

"The Republic was wondering where that had gone," Admiral seh'Virinat said calmly in the momentary downtime. "Inventory showed there had been five prototypes."

"Yes, I figured the Terrans wouldn't have any Romulans doing shield research," D'ellian said. "The plasma reflector works well against unsuspecting opponents." She opened the pouch again, and winced. "Very pricy in terms of power cells, though, I can see why the Republic hadn't put it in production."

"I'm sure there's a dozen ways to subvert it, once you know about it," Foch said. D'ellian rolled her eyes ruefully at that.

"Captain Dax to all hands, brace for impact!" came suddenly over the PA. The ship shuddered briefly, though the crew, given even scant warning, rode it out without falling thanks to plenty of experience.

"Sounds like it's pretty rough out there," Antonine said, wondering if it was anything her ship could see.

"Yes, let me contact command. Wait my transponder is missing," Chekov said, patting himself.

Transporter effect hummed, and Antonine readied her assault weapon to cover – but the figure who appeared wasn't in midriff bearing Terran gear, but rather was in overalls. Rather heftily in overalls. The human male looked around, and said calmly, "Someone call for a miracle worker, then?"

" _Scotty_?" Chekov said in disbelief.

Antonine blinked in recognition of a man still lauded in engineering manuals. This was Captain Montgomery Scott, a man whose skill at diagnosis, design, and repair under all conditions had made him a legend, an idol, to generations of engineers. She checked the transporter doorway again, in case Captain Archer was going to wander in as well.

"That would be this wee temporal beacon. Once activated, it brought me here, somehow," Scotty said.

"Bozhe," Chekov replied, still looking sunned.

"I've been holding onto that beacon for many year, waiting a signal. Better late than never, I suppose. Where – and when –are we, if ye don't mind me asking?" Scott asked.

Foch, smiling, stepped forward. "We're onboard the USS Enterprise-J, in the 26th century," he said. "It is good to see you again – the last for me was Babel."

"Aye, where I picked this little trinket up," Scott said, handing it to Chekov. The security officer took it, wordlessly. "It's good to see, you, Dean. _Conestoga_ got a fine hero's funeral."

"It earned it," Dean said. "Glad to have you with us."

Captain Revka coughed. "So, are you going to introduce us?" Antonine looked at her counterpart, and decided she was damned if her alternate got an autograph and she didn't.

The ship shuddered again. Captain Scott asked, "Oh, aye? Judging by the sound of things, I'd say we're in the kind of trouble that Enterprises get into regularly, am I right?"

Antonine stepped in front of her other self. "That's a fair statement, yes," she said.

"Well, we'd better get to it, then. Wouldn't want to let a fine lady like this down, would we?" Scott said merrily.

D'ellian spoke first, giving the two Starfleet engineering-track captains a stink eye. "No, we would not. Glad you're with us, Captain Scott. Stay back for now, you're not equipped for combat," she said.

The door frame at the end of the hallway sparked. "More boarders, it seems, we should be about this," Chekov advised. The shimmer of transporter effect and whine of charging capacitors was their answer.

Several minutes later, they had fought their way to the engineering annex. Antonine, Scotty, Chekov, and the other Antonine peered in dubiously. Admiral seh'Virinat was poking in frustration at one of the control pads on the door that had disgorged the last bunch of Terrans, an induction probe in hand. D'ellian and her crew had found a set of emergency crew, and were putting out the fires that were the only evidence of the Imperials passing.

"I've seen shuttles bigger than this engine room," Antonine said flatly. "Will this work?" The room was near featureless, except for four massive bays, steaming slightly and a hatch leading elsewhere on the other side of the compartment. There was, apparently, no crew on duty in there as well.

Antonine, frustrated, stepped into the room. The room, dark and small, and dominated by four massive conduits, lit up, and the center of the room developed a groove in it; a circle tracing out as consoles rose, or perhaps grew, from the floor, with barely a noise, covered easily by Antonine's gasp. Foch came over briefly, took one look, then whirled.

"Set up a cordon out here," Foch directed. "The Terrans aren't taking or giving any prisoners, we don't know how they subverted the ship's transport system." The Alliance members nodded to their crews as well, seh'Virinat closing her tricorder with a snap to join the captains as her officers took positions.

"It must remain a mystery for now. This panel was also utilizing an active counter-measure to my probe, and none of our command codes have been accepted by the integrated systems," the Romulan said. "Assuming this _is_ a lockdown, we would require some _Enterprise_ officer to get use of more than the emergency systems."

"It's possible they had lost control of this area," Chekov said. He stepped forward hesitantly, the console brightening at his approach.

"Or there's a shadow game going on still," Antonine said. "For whatever reason they want us to do it."

Captain Revka tapped her commbadge. "No reason to do it alone. Revka to _Fuso_ ," Captain Revka said. "We've reached our target but there's a lot of consoles. Pull whoever you can qualified in power distribution and send them down, this is a non-combat position."

" _Fuso_ here," came over the commlink. "Sorry Captain, we've been trying to contact you. The _I.S.S. Enterprise_ and a core squadron have advanced with some Sphere Builder support – they're refusing to engage closely but they made at least one transporter pass; we're having trouble trying to line one up of our own."

"Understood," Captain Revka said. She gave an angry glare in the vague direction of the _Ent-J's_ bridge.

"It's on us then," Chekov said, "Alright. We need to integrate the Tox Uthat into the primary power network of the Enterprise. Scotty… I could use a hand here."

D'ellian said, voice deep with teasing, "Do you think you can handle 26th century engineering, Scotty?"

"Oh, I think I'll manage, General," Scotty said back playfully, "We'll get this gadget of yours hooked up in no time."

"Excellent," Antonine cut in, "We'll do what we can to help you both." She motioned her other self, ignoring the glare, to one of the consoles that had emerged. She tapped it at it hesitantly, LCARS had evolved in the intervening time. Her counterpart approached with no hesitation, Antonine noted. She wondered where she had seen it.

With a deep whum of massive servos; the 'pits' on the sides of the room moved to connect. She felt a thrum under her feet. From the way the status monitor was changing, _Enterprise_ was growing the plasma conduits they needed. Antonine suppressed a brief shudder.

"We're going to need to reconfigure these consoles to work with the Tox Uthat," Chekov said, as if by rote.

More consoles started to unfold from the floor. The noise didn't, to her experienced ears, quite cover the whine of transporters.

"Incoming!" Chekov shouted, pulling Scotty behind one of the consoles. "Keep working, Scotty!"

"They're beaming in by the doors," Antonine said. She saw their crew turning before one of the Terrans punched in something to the hatch console; and the door sealed shut.

They were less prepared for the wave of fire from wide-angle energy weapons facing them, as grenades and drones entered the air from both sides. Antonine wasn't bothering with that. Last time she'd managed to get some R&R, she'd had a chance to see some of the weather modification tech used on Risa.

Her shields crackled as several shots grazed her as she tried to keep a moving target. She called up the components as she moved. She'd insisted to her engineers that they needed to be able to do their jobs blindfolded, so she was putting money where her mouth was.

She slammed together components before she was in a crossfire, the generator lurched and gave off some steam. She staggered briefly, being hit across the back by the butt of a phaser rifle, and turned, getting in a clinch briefly with a tactical officer she would later swear she recognized. Antonine knew she didn't have the strength against anyone specialized in hand-to-hand where everyone carried knives, and rolled away, performing Emergency Repair Procedure one on the generator.

Fortunately, the kick worked. The hurricane generator whirled to life; a tsunami of storm and lighting, wherever Antonine wasn't, thanks to a pretty simple thermal proximity sensor. To external observers, she simply rolled out of the storm.

Admiral seh'Virinat was almost ludicrous with a small plasma pistol compared to everyone else's rifles and assault weapons, but her real effort was the tricorder in the other hand; pinpointing the targets staggering in the high winds for the other officers. The figures were shadows; made worse as the dust whipped up by the generator caught the haze and bloom of a spectrum of energy weapons.

"How we doing?" Antonine asked. It looked like everyone had survived in the room. Chekov went to the hatch and tapped in a sequence, apparently unsealing it and revealing some very worried staff. Antonine adjusted her tricorder slightly, setting for transporter trace alerts. It seemed everyone had an easier time getting around than her.

"Thinking about proposing Starfleet Operations take up the ironclad policy on first officers leading away missions again," her alternate quipped, but tiredly.

"Well, yes, but more immediately?" Antonine asked. Her friends, and allies, looked all intact.

"Alive," Admiral seh'Virinat said, running some more tricorder scans near the door. "Though concerned, that the Terrans apparently had access to security protocols."

"Captain Scott?" she asked.

"I wrote this warp protocol! They're still using it!" Scotty crowed from behind one of the consoles.

"Take that as you well," D'ellian suggested. She shook her head briefly as consoles unfolded, the two other 'steam pits' in the room linking and merging into two more power conduits. Additional consoles were rising from the floor, Chekov and Scott fairly dancing between them making adjustments. Chekov consulted a PADD, Scotty operated on some sort of sheer instinct.

"Like a fairy ring," Foch said, referencing something Antonine's world had missed, the UT wasn't sure what to analogize that to. Admiral seh'Virinat had apparently had her sense of wonder surgically removed. She was went across the room and was tapping into the control for the hatch there, which was buzzing weakly in response.

"If we can cut it down to just transporter entry we may be able to block them. We'll realign the consoles. Watch out for our friends from the Terran Empire," Chekov said.

That got Scotty to interrupt his work, poking his head up over the array he was realigning. "Terran…?" Scotty asked. "As in the Mirror Universe? Goatees and Agonizers?" He shook his head in disbelief.

"The same," Chekov said sternly. "So, let's get this done quickly, eh, Scotty?"

"Aye," was the main reply.

Something was shifting; her tricorder's alarm buzzed in its pocket; beneath her feet, in the conduits and unknown machinery, micro-transporter traces. The waveform was too fluctuating to be an organic trace. Replicators of some kind, she decided. Antonine smiled after she looked up. The other four captains also had tricorders pointed at the floor when she looked up.

Somewhat awkwardly, they started to put them away.

"I think I have simulated the structure reinforcement that sealed the hatch against the weaponry our allies are carrying," Admiral seh'Virinat said.

"And I've added a few tweaks to these conduits," Scotty said, poking deep into one as he spoke. "Not just warp power, but a wee dram of antimatter too, circulating around this room. I'm a cool hand with a transporter, but I'd have to start with an army to get a soldier through that. I'm sure they're in no hurry to volunteer to get their molecules scattered."

Antonine's tricorder buzzed, more insistently. She held it up, but D'ellian had spun in place, looking for transporter effect. "Looks like they agreed, Captain Scott," the Orion said.

"They're trying the hallway past the hatch again," Antonine said, more precisely. After a moment, there was the distinct sound of phaser discharge, but there was no glow of vaporization visible.

The six levelled weapons expectantly, but nothing appeared. There was a loud bang – a shaped charge, but the hatch didn't even shake on this side. Antonine jogged over, then, hesitantly touched the hatch. It wasn't even warm. She nodded in approval, and then motioned her counterpart over to set up some generators and turrets anyway.

"D'ellian to _Mchwa_ , status report," the Orion said into a wrist communicator.

The translation back had a mechanical edge to it, and started after an unusual pause. "General, _Mchwa_ is at slightly above half speed following damage. All ships in the squadron report damage in various levels. More temporal ships have joined us, and the Terran _Enterprise_ has fallen back after a light skirmish. Her shields and hulls are not registering the effects of the anomalies, and we are attempting to understand that configuration."

"If their Starfleet was suffering like our ships were, I'd say go after _Enterprise_ ," Antonine said. That got some nods. The Orion just glanced at the hatch briefly.

"Well done. What is the boarders' status?" D'ellian asked.

"We are unable to distinguish individual life signs through _Enterprise-J's_ structural integrity field. The ship's power level is increasing. We can detect a large cluster of life signs in compartments near you, with weapon fire engaged. Other forces are clustering as well, but with such a ready use of transporters we cannot determine victor or vanquished."

"Continue battle status, D'ellian out," the Orion said, closing the channel. She looked around. "Today's experience would suggest the Terrans are doing better; simply given the poor progress and coordination of this _Enterprise's_ security staff thus far."

"And Noye has spent a tremendous amount of time weighting the Elements against us," An'riel said. Antonine could hear the capital letter; the Romulans pragmatic animism wasn't a showy part of their culture, but it was constantly there. D'ellian nodded ruefully at that.

"Aye, let's deploy the Core Integration Chamber and wrap this up!" Scotty said cheerfully.

From the 'fairy ring' of consoles, a massive column rose from the floor, and meshed, flexed, and became one with an identical one coming from the ceiling, columns, controls, and field projectors growing out of it.

"Well, you can see why they need less engineers," Foch said, watching it writhe.

"I wish they had communication officers," Antonine's counterpart said.

"I'm rather sick of this maze, too," Antonine agreed.

"I haven't been able to get contact with the bridge," Chekov said, worried. "But if you could give Scotty and I a hand; monitoring these consoles we can install the Tox Uthat. Hopefully, we won't get any more uninvited guests."

"Why did you say that?" Scotty complained. "Now we're sure to get some now!"

"Right, just keep the lines straight?" An'riel asked, as she walked over with the others from the hatch. It still wasn't even glowing. She folded her tricorder and set it down as Chekov nodded. Antonine said nothing, despite 'folded' not meaning 'off'.

She instead studied her console. It was a simple matter of making sure power levels stayed within tolerance levels – amazing tolerance levels if taken as absolutes. Assuming Starfleet didn't change how much of a percentage risked overload over the normal carry, these quickly-grown conduits carried roughly seventy percent of _Nagato's_ max output. And that was for each of the four.

"I'd love to have a look at the main engine room here," she said, as Scotty stopped by briefly as he circled the system, making more adjustments. "Shame they'd probably vaporize me instantly."

"That could just be for safety, lass," Scotty said, in a low voice and more serious. "I figure this ship matches the industrial output of Sol sector in my time; and if you can build one of these- "

"-Where are all the rest?" Antonine finished, equally low. "There was a fleet opposing this one ship, and Chekov's information sad the rest of Starfleet was fending off the anomaly expansion, but everything feels too balanced."

"Well, keep your eyes open," Scotty said, glancing at the Republic-model tricorder lying still and then winking briefly. "All this shadow play should make sense given enough time, right?"

Finally, whatever pattern Chekov was trying for was complete, and the quantum manipulator was duly produced. It's casing looked downright battered, but the crystalline internal structure gleamed. Antonine hoped it would be enough.

"If this is right, the Tox Uthat will let us project the resonance wave back into the Sphere Builder's dimension," Chekov said, carefully setting the solid-state device into a receptacle. There was a brief flash of a force field establishing as Chekov's hands left it. "Not only will they be gone, but the damage should be enough to stop them from going after any other universe or timeline."

"Assuming the Krenim cannot send more supplies," An'riel said, looking at a panel carefully. "Odd energy flares out there, now." She picked up her tricorder and tried it briefly. "Still cannot register anything out of line of sight, naturally."

"Yes, Noye's absence is alarming. Previous iterations the _Annorax_ has appeared by now," Chekov said. He checked the armature and began keying in a sequence as he spoke. "Though things were not so bad _Enterprise_ was boarded, either. But I will take his non-interference, beginning sequence."

Chekov stepped back as the Tox Uthat began to glow, fortunately, as a bolt of something like fire seared into the console. Instead of melting, it sparked and writhed with lightning; overloaded beyond the dampeners.

The group turned and whirled – seeing a perfect cylinder bored through the hatch. Everyone dove for cover before the hatch exploded outward, in a gout of flame. Distorted by heat, Admiral Leeta strode through, carrying a phaser pistol forward in a negligent grip as she ignored the remnants of the fabrications that had been deployed. Behind her, Antonine could hear a firefight break out; her bridge officers and the others were being kept occupied.

"Nice try," she said, "But you're done here." She surveyed the room as other troops; with a worrying number of pips at their collars, came into the room as well. "None of you look like the beg for mercy type, so let's just skip to your executions."

A barrage of energy weapon fire answered her, a heavy-duty personal shield sparking under the assault.

"You were right, Scotty," Chekov said from where he was covering the engineer., "Unfortunately."

"I thought your report said the Pah-Wraiths had forsaken her," Antonine called to D'ellian. Leeta had been 'blessed' by powers from the factional war among the wormhole aliens in one of the many attempts to seize DS9 and the wormhole.

"They had," the Orion replied, ducked behind a conduit against the more conventional weapons fire while countering with her wrist-launcher again. "But times seem to have changed." Leeta winced as the grenade landed at her feet, a conventional heavy shield flashing.

"But not as well as then," Antonine said. "She should have torched this whole room if the Pah-Wraiths could put that weight on the scales." She felt an uncomfortable weight in her belt; where she had placed the Shard earlier. Everyone was eager to interfere, it seemed.

"Aye, let's deal with this angry lass and her band of thugs!" Scotty encouraged, keeping out of sight.

Leeta paused, ignoring two officers falling around her from accurate fire form Foch's chroniton rifle. "Lass?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, I like you! Take the Scotsman alive... kill the rest," she ordered, slowly conjuring another flame.

"She fights like a Klingon," Chekov said.

"The haggis is in the fire for sure," Scotty said with relish. Antonine rather suspected the old engineer was flattered.

"Not yet," Admiral seh'Virinat stated calmly, as she had her tricorder out again. Suddenly, an exhalation of heat blew past Antonine's face a presence she could feel through the shields. Leeta and those with her were suddenly rimed with ice.

" _Endo_ thermic induction? A freezing field?" Captain Revka asked, amused. "That seems inefficient." Antonine's other half was, in spite of her newness to this sort of thing, calmly keeping a steady beam on Leeta's shield. The Bajoran was starting to move, slowly – ice lining her shield slowing her down, but she was sadly alive.

"Indubitably. But surprise can outweigh those concerns," the Romulan answered. She ducked as a Terran turret went into action, then whirled, a concentrated blast lining an officer in terrible light before he vaporized with a scream. "Though there is a point of diminishing returns," she called, "If your Admiral was worthy of the title, she could have upgraded all your shielding and still had something three-quarters as good." There were some awkward glances from Leeta's rapidly-diminishing engineering contingent. Antonine suspected it'd never been a popular post.

Chekov studied the by-play and sighed. "I might be getting too old for this," he lamented.

Scotty said, encouragingly, "Nonsense, you're just getting started, laddie!" The pair ducked again – Leeta was trying the 'fire' again. The plasma-hot simply seared into the power conduits instead of splattering, fortunately. The need to avoid the heat set everyone reeling back to cover, as more Terran squads entered. Antonine staggered up, she could feel the Shard turning – it wanted this _done._

She refused, deploying another turret of her own, though the buffer was nearly empty. "Captain Scott, there should be a way to set a larger-scale dampening field, we may be able to get that information."

"I don't know if the Tox Uthat could take that, lass," Scotty said back. "The armor's one thing, but it's part of a circuit."

"What was that, sir?" Captain Revka said, popping her head up; then down as two phaser beams intersected where she'd been – two seeker drones rose, buzzing for vengeance.

"This room's built like a battleship, lassie – plenty of armor," Scott said.

"Oh," Revka looked at herself, then at Leeta. "The shield's something, but she's not trying for physical combat – it could be a base model."

Antonine knew how she thought. "If you've got the diagnostic equipment go," she directed. "I, er, have people for that now." She deployed one of her last drones. "Setting a targeting feed."

"Foch – like on New Romulus," Revka called out. The human nodded, and switched weapons; a more standard phaser rifle, but someone had tweaked the cooling cells to speed the cycle rate. Foch kept the trigger down as he started suppressing fire.

Revka slid forward, imitating herself to some degree earlier with the generator, and held an engineering probe like a weapon towards Leeta. The Bajoran looked amused, and shifted her sidearm to take out the irritating reptile, then alarmed, as her arm slowed to a halt.

"What?" Leeta demanded imperiously. Antonine could see her jaw clench as she fought against her armor, its servomotors immobile in a self-test cycle. The others with her were surprised, their demigoddess leader impinged upon.

"Got the feed, sending targeting adjustments to your systems" D'ellian said, carefully aiming. "Fire on my mark in three, two…" On cue, all six fired. With Leeta unable to dodge, her amazing personal shield was less able to deflect and absorb, and Leeta screamed again, this time in pain as the heat and energy built enough to work through, melting and searing her armor's polysilicates – but causing the armor's main processor to fail, releasing the servos.

Leeta huffed, smoldering – literally, but suddenly stopped, a puff of smoke surrounding her again instead of an aura of fire. "Ugh, I've had more than enough of this," she said, opening a channel. "Terran forces, this is the Admiral. We're leaving. Now." A transporter beam caught her almost immediately, but Leeta wasn't closing the channel, voice continuing as she began to disappear. Other transporter beams reached out for the other Terrans.

"Good luck with your fool's errand, Noye. You'll need it."

" _Sparrowhawk_ , this is Admiral seh'Virinat – situation report," the Romulan asked.

"The _Enterprise-F_ blew in again – we've gathered enough forces we got some good hits in; she's down at least one impulse engine and a few warp coils, sir. We detected transporter activity and then she opened a temporal vortex," came a deep male voice. There was a pause then, "Terran forces are withdrawing, reported by all ships and contacts. Other forces are abandoning the other Spheres and defense lines and coming here. Alliance forces in pursuit."

Chekov wasted no time in studying the Tox Uthat's armature. "Leeta's shot sent a surge through the command relays. They're offline, but Scotty and I can get them running again. We just need the time!" he said.

"You'll have it," Foch said calmly.

"Fifteen minutes, tops," Scotty said, studying.

"Losing the Terran fleet won't make Noye Happy. He'll send every ship he has at the Enterprise. You need to keep her safe while we finish the job here, Admiral," Chekov ordered. Antonine gave a brief salute and tapped her commbadge.

" _Nagato_ , all security forces to beam up," she ordered. "Energize."

* * *

She was back on the bridge in a minute, what was left of it. Conduits were rigged console to console, additional splices even as she walked towards what was left of her center chair. Most of the lights were knocked out, but all the consoles were lit, and the viewscreen was running. Off two portable holoprojectors, but it was up.

Antonine completed her brief survey and stood, arms folded behind her, where her chair should be as her primary crew got to position. "All hands," she directed. Liess nodded. "All crew, this is the Admiral. Our mission here is nearly over. I wanted to thank you all for your tremendous efforts today. You are the very best, and I am proud to serve with you. Though this mission is secret, your efforts have preserved trillions of lives." She signaled to cut it off.

"How do we stand?" Antonine asked of Galitan, who came over to deliver the report.

The operations officer looked glum even through her bone ridges. "We're pretty cross-wired. We gave _Enterprise_ a bloody nose before it ran off, but we have hull breaches on decks 6 and 8, and a good helping of micro-fractures. Environmental estimates four hours before lifesystem collapse under these conditions."

"Local space is going to go back to benignly trying to kill us soon," Antonine assured her. "We can make it through another few minutes in here. And Chekov has a genuine miracle worker over there, so it should be faster than that." Antonine turned to Liess. "Get me the tactical link from _Sparrowhawk_ , and squadron readiness reports."

The squadron's readiness really wasn't after such a hard battle. _Mchwa_ 's wounds were most evident, with the hole blown in the side from the dreadnought. But besides missing an engine – and Antonine couldn't imagine what havoc had taken place inside – her hanger bays were silent, emptied of materials by the attrition. And the capital ships supplies were incompatible with the Xindi biotech.

 _Roland's_ miswired and overstressed nacelles had it down to impulse power, and the radiation levels in the working sections had those at half-strength, along with a generous assortment of microfractures. Foch's crew claimed they had weapons, but Antonine doubted their phasers had much left.

 _Fuso_ 's power grid was in better shape and had her antiproton banks still, but the ship had been in the best shape, and on point – when _Enterprise_ came in. Only some sort of controlled overload of the temporal core had saved the ship from Leeta's wrath, but in the aftermath the ship's molecular control functions were offline, power levels were badly fluctuating, and without the ship's own self-healing functions, they were starting to lose sensors and surface units to the anomalies as well.

 _Sparrowhawk_ was in the best shape in a relative sense. Her hull and systems were intact, thanks to being kept out of the main action to command, but her shields were paper-thin and a quarter of her crew were casualties. Vulcanoids toughness simply didn't factor against this chaotic space.

 _Better than I hoped_ , Antonine thought to herself. Aloud, she said, "More than I would like, but remarkable under the circumstances. Fleet status?"

Takerra was compiling the data feeds. "I think the temporal defense fleet is done as an institution," she said bleakly. "Losses are heavy, even with those _other_ future ships"

"Dunwen?' Antonine asked.

" _Longevity's_ intact, if probably ready for a round in the yards," Takerra said, displeased.

"Easier with a face on it," Antonine admitted quietly, "Especially if they live."

"Can't argue there," Takerra said. "We're ready, but we're not going to last long. But the temporal fleet's out, the conventional fleet is here." She handed over a PADD. It was studded with dots, enemy and friendly, the enemy defense lines collapsing onto their position in a last attempt to stop _Enterprise._ It was a singularity point in every term as hundreds of ships converged through time and space.

There were two oddities, though – one, a brief area without Spheres, notable only through their density elsewhere, though the placement didn't make sense. It looked like _Sparrowhawk_ was keeping an eye on that. The other, though, took a second to realize what was so familiar.

Antonine took it in a moment. "These IFFs are confirmed?"

"Yes, they're not in our database, though the names are reuses, but the warp signatures match our warbook readings," Takerra said, not amused. " _Enterprise_ aside, Starfleet hasn't changed much in a century. Not that they're talking to us, of course."

"Or they whipped these ships up for the finale," Antonine said. "Still trying to decide which I like less." She sighed. "Boy is that the refrain for the day." Takerra nodded at that. "All right, a stern chase won't do the Na'kuhl any good. The antiquarian parade will keep them from going to warp, so," she paused, as she tapped the PADD, highlighting. "These squadrons can probably break-away if we're not going to get macro coordination."

"They are sort of rumbling to the closet enemy and blazing away," Takerra said with professional distaste.

"We'll have to remember to reinforce Advanced Tactical Training when we get back," Antonine said, going more professional. "Get me _Sparrowhawk_ , make sure they don't have anything new, and we'll be the face for their tactical coordination so we can vector the intercepts. The temporal fleet has done well," Antonine said, and touched a cable for dramatic emphasis. It sparked on cue, as she well knew. "But we're in no shape – they're going to have to hold the line and do the dying a bit longer."

* * *

Dying was indeed done, coordinating ships across space to arrive at the right point on time. Starfleet of this time seemed to blaze away with abandon. _Enterprise_ was infuriatingly silent otherwise. Finally, at last, Scotty broke on the feed.

"We're as ready as we'll ever be, Admiral, just give the word!" Scotty bellowed.

Antonine glanced briefly – no Alliance ships were in the firing arc. Two Na'kuhl cruisers were, but they were the smoldering remnants of a squadron that had crawled three _Prometheus_ to destruction, so she wasn't inclined for a warning.

"The word is given, Captain! Fire!" she urged.

There was a brief terrifying second of silence – then, _Enterprise-J_ came to a halt, a pulse of energy reaching from her deflector like an angel's sword – the viewscreen broke up; the battered computers simply weren't sure how to translate the complex pulse into visible light, but she could _feel_ it, crawling up her nervous systems – she could taste purple briefly. From the gasps from junior officers, it wasn't just her biologicals that were affected.

Reality outside asserted itself enough for the computers to make sense of it in time to see the beam impacting on one of the Spheres; before more bizarre energy traced off in loops, like water splashing against concrete, to impact Sphere after Sphere. Then, one after another, they started to implode, with angry fissures.

"Mass present is decreasing, not just compression" N'Karon said. "Or just the constants are changing. If Starfleet lets me, we're going to rewrite subspace/gravity interactions when we get back. But, simply," the Klingon looked up, baring her teeth, and stated, "I'd say with the help of the Tox Uthat, the universe and our reality is _rejecting_ the Spheres."

"Good," Antonine said, with a bit of a gasp. Sphere after Sphere flared, shrunk; died. Then, gloriously, the pressure on her chest, nerves, on this _universe_ started to come to an end. _Nagato_ hummed around her with greater life, as the mighty strain she'd slowly been dying under was released. The sky faded to the blue/black of the Procyon sector, the familiar stars of Starfleet's sailors' home ports. Status indicators started to fade up from red to yellow as shields, environmental, science, all started to finally get ahead.

"N'Karon, I know the long-range sensors are shot, but do a spectrographic match – confirm Sector 001," she said.

"Aye Admiral," the Klingon said, and tapped a few buttons. The screen reoriented, and an insignificant yellow dwarf, one of thousands in this part of the galaxy, was centered. "Sol confirmed," she flipped again, this time blue. "Procyon confirmed," she said with some relief. And again, and again, the homeworlds of the Federation, or at least their stars, were still there. She could live with that.

"Admiral Revka to fleet," she said, "Mission complete, well done."

"Odd reactions still on _Enterprise_ , think her warp drive is down from the power surge," N'Karon said.

Liess held up a hand. "Admiral, signal on priority channel. Having some trouble on tactical channels, trying backups." Antonine nodded.

The screen flickered, and then Noye appeared. "This isn't over, Admiral! I have all the time I need to find the path to victory!" The channel cut before she could say anything. Tactical had gone odd – jerky, but the hole filled in – _Annorax_ , lurking.

" _Sparrowhawk_ ," Antonine said, "I know you've been holding back for this – you're released."

"The Romulans have already singularity jumped," N'Karon said with some disgust. Sure enough, with _Nagato's_ bad sensors and the Romulans no longer in close-range for tactical coordination, the singularity they'd left behind had been mistaken for the ship. _Nagato_ was exhausted.

"All squadron, Liess," Antonine said. "Patch in Chekov and Scott if you can."

"He's going to run, Admiral," Chekov said grimly. "He's done it many times before. Disable the Annorax if you can and take Noye alive. He should answer for his crimes!"

"The Romulans are ahead," General D'ellian said, "But her record shows a strong sense of personal responsibility."

"And a tendency to play risks," Antonine said, "She worked hard to keep her hull systems intact, even if the crew wasn't. If we'd needed her to press a bit harder earlier, it could have ended badly."

"Do you blame her?" the Orion asked, "Noye managed to slip by, usually with his tail between his legs, at least twice." Antonine shook her head.

"Then probably the _Enterprise_ would wave a wand," Foch said, with some disgust.

"They can't wave more than a distress beacon right now," Revka said. "It looks like a cascade EPS failure over there. The whole power distribution system looks like it undervolted and imploded during the firing."

"Really rather amateur," Scotty poked his head into view, looking pleased. "They really should have watched for something like that; but my, looks like someone not quite used to the technology set up the power flows. Ah well, they should be back in a few hours, and life support is humming along fine."

"Quite the black mark, I suppose," Antonine said coolly. "All right – let's get Admiral seh'Virinat on the line – send everything we can along to try and catch up, and our best wishes. I'd prefer not to have to try this again."

* * *

Author's Note: Okay, this chapter became a monster, but has the majority of the actual 'episode' as it were. Everyone's beaten down, but since it was a five-man group, bosses like Leeta got boosted a bit to compensate, especially as everyone seems to want to weigh in on the Nexus point.

And our heroes would really like to get this done, save a lot of lives, and get back to hoping history will treat them kindly without knowing the exact details.

But the Prophets didn't get their chance, the Pah-Wraiths have made their usual bad call, most of the time travelers are beaten back, and the _Enterprise_ can't weigh in.

Five 'ace' captains/admirals is sort of a tremendous amount of power to throw at a problem, but a nexus of all history deserves a certain amount of respect.

An'riel's gone up against the Annorax and held the battlefield at the end twice, though the _Lexington_ there was a bit better than the _Sparrowhawk_. Still, she has to beat it down again and not let it run, or Noye will try another throw of the dice, ever looking for those elusive boxcars.

Be happy to get back to stories where history isn't the way it is because the things you did let certain people time travel back and change it.

Probably one last chapter vs Noye, and then maybe a separate epilogue to fete everyone.

Please read and review, hope you enjoyed.


	5. The Hunter

At the Jaws of Fenrir

Chapter 5: The Hunter

A retelling of the 'Ragnarok' mission

* * *

 _Ragnarok – Enterprise prepares to fire_

They were at the end of everything, but had been there long enough it almost felt normal, though _certainly_ uncomfortable. The pressure, heat, and radiation of the Sphere Builders' attempt to rewrite reality weighed heavily on the soul, at least here on _Sparrowhawk_. But the battle continued, what other choice was there?

Fleet Admiral An'riel seh'Virinat focused on breathing and her console. Her team, her friends and family, knew their duty. There was little to add at this point. The team she was with on this mission were survivors and veterans of the long period of war in the early 25th century. Their mighty squadron had been reduced nearly to rubble in the process, but _Enterprise_ , enigmatically silent, was working its way to firing position. And there were other ships.

"Vector that squadron to sector eight, but at nine o'clock relative," Admiral Antonine Revka was addressing through the link. Her proud _Yamato-_ class was a burning wreck, but she had the experience, and was Starfleet, like most of the ships. Orders originating at the _Nagato_ were more likely to be obeyed, even if their operational layout was being decided by the Republic CiC specialists on _Sparrowhawk_. Actually, from this and a few past experiences, An'riel wasn't sure if Admiral Revka _could_ be irritated on a personal level.

She was pleased with the work of _Sparrowhawk_. The _Deihu_ was specialized as a full command platform on a smaller hull, easier to maintain and man, a much more serious problem for the Republic than their allies. They'd managed to maintain tactical coordination even though the laws of physics were not those they were used to, straining mechanics and people.

"Crew status?" she finally broke her silence. She could feel the ship's groans. Shields hadn't been breached, but were thin. They'd been lucky, and playing tactical command had meant using their allies shamefully, but they'd at least kept the skies full of plasma torpedoes. Even with flirting with cowardice, the hull and structural integrity fields were having trouble compensating for the bizarre stresses, and the people.

"Satra thinks most will recover, but they're not cleared for duty," Jalel, her liaison was manning communications as well. The spirited doctor was in a fight for hundreds of her crew's lives.

"How long?" An'riel asked, "We need our damage control teams. They still have an advantage until we can clear the Spheres." She glared at an area clear of activity by all sensors; several light seconds thick. A shame for Noye all the communication activity that was headed there.

"Satra said, and to quote, that neurochemistry wasn't just something a protoplaser could be run over," Jalel said, "They'll eventually recover -probably - but it calls for specialists and time. Some are still in comas."

"What is he waiting for?" Tovan asked. "We're alive and maybe even winning, something the size of the _Annorax_ could tip the scales."

"He has used it poorly in the past, but it is still a powerful ship. Perhaps he is observing factors he can weigh with further time travel? Noye's motivations have been very opaque," An'riel suggested. She was confused as well. They'd fought Noye before, and he really _was_ no captain. An'riel glanced at the _Roland_ and _Mchwa_ status indicators with some envy. They were still dancing through some gorgeously complex evasive patterns despite their reduced speed. She was a mere journeyman in comparison for ship handling, but she was far ahead of the Kremin scientist.

"But we're already here," Tovan said, sounding tired and sick. "How do you run the same event more than once with only one of you?"

"An excellent question I hope we get to ask – bring us three degrees' aspect to port, helm," An'riel broke into the flow, "Timing suggests those Na'kuhl will have their temporal distortions up and they should break free of their pursuit _._ "

Admiral Revka opened the link as well. "Those raiders are about to leave those _Valiants_ in the dust and try to cut off _Enterprise_. Squadron 8, head that way," she directed.

"Those vectors are ready for intercept to the sensor blind," Tovan noted, with minor amusement. "That's the fifth squadron she has vectored that way"

"Acknowledged," An'riel said. She spared a moment to glare at _Enterprise_. Whatever her capabilities were outside winning this, she was keeping them close to the chest. An'riel rather hoped its captain felt as manipulated as she did, and hated it as much.

* * *

" _Enterprise_ firing," Tovan said at last. With a wave of power and waveforms that their databanks balked at identifying in real time, the Spheres were crushed out of existence with an angry hand. She could feel the hand of the Sphere Builders; the pressure and radiation, ease against her and her vessel as normalcy asserted itself, but her heart was still tight, adrenaline pounding. If Chekov was right; the Sphere Builders would be sealed away from attempting xenocide again.

An'riel turned away to refocus her crew as the Spheres slowly wiped out of existence. It'd be a little while before the chain finished. She needed a moment to refocus.

"I wish there was more that could be done on them," An'riel mused, "They are too dangerous to allow a white peace."

"The time authorities seem certain, Admiral," Jalel said, "This is the end of them."

Hiven added, "Temporal vortices opening – Na'kuhl and Vorgon forces are fleeing through them. Sphere Builder ships are losing power. Most of the Krenim have left."

"All this effort, they see the end. Would we could see the beginning – if they are the Tuterians, why did they not _ask_?" An'riel said. She let some of her frustration peek through as Jalel was silent. "The Alliance knows more about the Solanae transfiguration and their equipment than anyone but the Iconians. There are millions of subspace researchers in labs scattered across the quadrants. Noye has one of the most powerful time machines ever encountered; but he did not rescue them from the Borg. Did he encourage them to vengeance? Or did they to him? Or for a timeline of Union, were whole realities sacrificed? There is a grand epic in its final act outside, but no protagonist."

"What?" Jalel asked.

Tovan took some pity. "That's right, you were at those security briefings when Hiven was going through that traditionalist poetry phase. Classical Rihannsu forms are all 'Great Heroine' styled – a single person, blessed with insight and will, whose decisions take whole clans, or nations in their wake."

Hiven nodded, "Great tragedies overcome, great loves won. Empires broken and forged." The science officer sighed.

"Given Sarek's effect on _two_ interstellar governments," Jalel said, "I'm not sure you're wrong – what dropped it out of favor?"

"As the Senate sold itself to the Tal Shiar," Hiven said, "They favored shorter literature forms of unquestioned obedience. Practically all stamped out of the same mold, the epics may have a consistent structure, but at least the stories were different."

"Tovan and I are letting our aristocracy show," An'riel allowed, "The Senate kept the old stories alive for their children and allies. Hiven was not force-fed it, and has a true appreciation for it." _And if he managed more than a monotone while reciting, he'd probably have more sharing his enthusiasm._ She did not add out loud.

"All spheres are now caught in the graviton effect," Hiven reported. "Pressure levels starting to drop, subspace normalizing, radiation decreasing."

An'riel relaxed a bit in her chair. "And back to work, resume tactical control – helm, get us on vector to the sensor blind. Ready singularity jump as soon as local conditions permit, maximum range. Sensors – full long-range sweep once the distortion stops blocking us," An'riel said.

The heat and pressure finally started to recede, out of the dimension, as the Spheres started to shatter, one after another.

"Local space at conditions safe our physiology can resist," Hiven said.

"Drop shields and get us moving, get a tactical update to Admiral Revka and let her figure out what is still mobile," An'riel said.

The stars were coming out, more glorious than normal with the full threat receding. The constellations were nearly familiar ones, from the Rihannsu's long history of war with Earth and then the Federation. Her generation had seen the impossibilities of the Star Empire's fall, and an alliance with the Vulcans. And somehow, in a century, things were twisted so death itself was pouring out of the heart of the Federation.

Jalel reported, "Admiral, I can't get through, something's overwhelming the tactical and general channels."

"Singularity jump _now_ ," An'riel ordered, and tried her best to ignore the warning lights and radiation alarms that triggered as the micro-wormhole carried them through still unsettled space. "Get that carrier message on screen and track back to source, Jalel," An'riel ordered.

The Trill complied, one hand holding him in place as the other worked his console. The screen flickered a few times before the hologram resolved. A bearded face, wild eyes and Krenim facial calcifications, filled it. He spoke wildly, "This isn't over, Admiral! I have all the time I need to find the path to victory!" The channel cut out.

"That is it?" An'riel asked. Jalel shrugged in response.

"Got that sensor null zone handled," Hiven said triumphantly. " _Annorax_ located!"

"Intercept at best velocity – damage control, verify structural integrity and continue shield repair. Evacuate irradiated areas, clean-up at available priority," An'riel said.

"Admiral Revka just released all units to pursue – I can see the scatter from a lot of tight beam work," Jalel said.

"Admiral, I have the long-range sweep initial results up, but our scans dissolve into noise at the three light year line," Hiven said.

"Verify anomalies are gone," An'riel said. She kept her flash of irritation to herself.

"Yes, we're being jammed – I can only get passive, non-subspace information past the limit," Hiven said with frustration.

"And now the future acts to guard itself," An'riel said, "Would they sent some of those ships to help. Time to intercept?"

"Some light frigates have reached _Annorax_ , but they're keeping their distance. Noye is moving at very low speed currently, they think he's trying to enter a temporal vortex," Tovan said, relaying from CIC.

"Admiral; priority call from Admiral Revka and Chekov," Jalel said. She nodded.

Admiral Revka's reptilian features gave her an advantage in looking older than she was, but now her voice was matching her face. Chekov looked worried, per normal.

"Noye has apparently crossed his timeline before; trying this battle multiple times," Revka said wearily, "The temporal defense and squadron forces are heavily damaged, but the extra timeships the Dahar Master keeps being smug about gave us more forces than anticipated. We're sending a battle plan your way."

"We have a few items in reserve here as well," An'riel admitted, going for a certain degree of apology; most of which was genuine. "Given the Terran Empire's infiltration of New Khitomer, discretion seemed wiser."

"Given Daniels prefers to keep some paradoxes in place, even if they kill millions," Revka said, "I can't fault you. _Enterprise_ has also been removed as a factor; she's crippled after firing." Chekov huffed but said nothing in the agent's defense.

"We will transmit our long-range sensor data back," An'riel assured. "Is the Tox Uthat recovered?" The device had consigned a star to death, the diaspora of the Na'kuhl people that resulted was responsible for much of the present pain, but one the future showed far less interest than the past in correcting.

Admiral Revka was definitely of the past, and she looked irritated, unfortunately. "It seems to have burned itself out, though I'll try to get the husk recovered. We'll need to rely on Doctor Hansen's team for coming up with something to restart the fusion process. Get Noye for now, and we wish we could join you. We'll see what we can piece together and send as backup," Revka promised.

"Now that I have my transponder back," Chekov said, with a glance off-screen, "And we are past the event nexus; New Khitomer command is back on-line. We are sending timeships to detain the escaping ships, since we have their originating temporal vector and they are still a significant force."

"Yes, and the _Annorax's_ databanks should include Noye's support network," An'riel said, "Elements willing we catch them."

* * *

 _Sparrowhawk_ raced along at full impulse, to cover the remaining distance. An'riel was keeping an eye on the shield emitters as repairs continued. Somehow, the crew had gotten it above fifty percent capacity, despite the surface damage and the reaving to much of the damage control staff. She'd left the bridge, briefly, putting Tovan in charge, to go see the medical halls.

The casualties had spilled out of sickbay, and were taking most of the arboretum and ship lounge that were also on the same deck. Medical staff moved among improved biobeds, and occasionally dispensed hyposprays; there was a hush over the deck, like the dead.

She knew all the faces and names; she made a habit of such memorization, hypno-aided if she was in a hurry. Anier drew her attention; second-class, subspace field effect specialist working on qualification on sensors. He was moaning but apparently asleep. She reached down to touch him and felt her shoulder encased in an iron grip.

"Don't," Satra said, deceptively quiet. The chief of sciences was a doctor, but not a surgeon by training, but green stained an overcoat over her work uniform. "His nervous system had the synaptic resistance changed; everything is hyper-sensitive. He's barely holding in artificial sleep."

"Nerve deadeners?' An'riel asked, "Repairs are not that critical if we must synthesize."

"No," Satra said, "I have no idea if it will last; and enough to dampen the nerve response would be instantly fatal in normal conditions. And thank you for not asking the other obvious answer."

"This ship only has twenty stasis pallets for critical cases," An'riel said. "I would not insult you. Show me the worse; and if there is anything I can do. We have a little time, and I will still need you for the field today."

"Oh, you don't need to plead," Satra said, facing coming alight, "Shooting the face of the man we had to follow into Hell will be a rare pleasure at this point."

* * *

She had been able to provide some help. Medicine was chemistry, to some degree, and physics – restraining motion or restoring. Help had been appreciated, but even the wounded knew her real place, and soon Tovan had called her back to the bridge for the end game.

The screening frigates had been brought down; mauled by righteous wrath. The attackers were an eclectic mix beyond imagining; ships from her time, conceived in the future, ships from the future, crewed by her time. Ships looking like her time, but crewed by the future, as far as they could tell.

Ahead of them, lit against the sky, was the _Annorax_ , savior of the Alliance, desecrator of the future. Every hope and treasure of the major governments of three Quadrants of the Galaxy had been poured into it, to create an unspeakable weapon against an unstoppable enemy. It had fired twice, in another reality.

The reality An'riel lived in, its sole use in anger had been a tremendous time travel device, tearing the veil between eras with that weapon. And the analysis of that passage had provided a new generation of safe, controllable time travel, putting time as reach in exploration as space, but making the way safe for visitors, their own devices' histories assured.

More importantly right now, the sheer mass and power requirements to support the temporal weapon gave the _Annorax_ tremendous conventional firepower, and Noye had refitted it at some unknown time and place.

" _Sparrowhawk_ status?" An'riel asked.

"Shields at approximately sixty percent capacity – shields three and five are under local control for deflection. Control runs to lateral sensors are a patch job, but we've replaced the worse degradation. Singularity core is stable. We've fixed the cascade error in hanger cradle four, all Scorpions on standby," Veril listed off, at the engineering repeater, "All weapons are now combat effective."

" _Annorax_ status?" she wanted to verify.

Hiven said, "Still present, with low power levels, but energy levels seem to be varying across the ship. Even with the extra additions we made before DS9, it's hard to get a read through its shields for exact status. Targeting sensors are active, so we can presume weapons. Helm control seems to be on gyros, with limited impulse and thruster activity."

"A mutiny or some equipment failure?" An'riel asked aloud, though no one had the answer. "Secure from high impulse at one minute to weapons range at normal speed. Launch fighters at that point in escort pattern. Now, let us hail them." Jalel started. "Hail them," she said firmly, "It has been a terrible day, children. Perhaps the Elements have seen our efforts, and the last is done for us."

The chirp of the hailing frequency carrier wave washed over the deck, but "No response," Jalel said.

An'riel sighed, audibly. "Put me on anyway," she said. "He is run to ground, whether he started a hero or merely a monster, let us give a eulogy."

Jalel signaled. "Noye," she said, giving no rank. "The Sphere Builders are done, their xenocide finished. The independent minds and wills of a million planets will overcome one madman, no matter what advantages you think or try to bring. Surrender the _Annorax_ intact, and I will give you to the Federation doctors to break this cycle of hatred in your mind. Force me to find you, and the grandchildren of those who died at Galorndon Core will get their day in the Senate."

Silence greeted her. She huffed, not quite a sigh.

"Close channel, raise shields, launch remaining fighters," An'riel said, tone back to all business. "We will go into waves until we can establish their state. Enter weapon range and finish this."

* * *

 _Annorax_ was mighty, but alone. Against it, the Alliance took a page from the Terran Empire against _Enterprise,_ sending ships in staggered formations. Bat-winged _Ouroboros_ raiders darted in first, cannons blazing against shielding, a variety of energy types. Beams of pure chronitons lashed out from weapon mounts; rainbows in their own right. Shields quivered and faded, but the raiders flipped over with high-speed rolls and cloaked out as the Krenim guns lost contact.

Advanced sensors reached out, but behind them were _Sparrowhawk_ and a small force of _Chronos_ dreadnoughts, with two _Eternal_ science ships for additional support. Before them were the fighters, advanced models based on the _Aeon_ and _Epoch_ futurecraft, with more normal _Peregrines_ , and An'riel's _Scorpions_. The gunners reoriented, but swiveled between trying to pick off fast-moving auxiliaries and trying to concentrate on breaking down the heavy shields of the capital ships.

Their arm was poor, bedeviled by the support of the science ships, which drained _Annorax's_ energy, jammed sensors, and subjected it to hideous gravimetric shear. They also provided electronic support for the capital ships, strengthening their shields and tactical sensors. Tying it together was _Sparrowhawk_ 's CiC, timing salvos of energy fire and torpedoes to impact without giving even brief moment for shields to recover.

Shields on the massive vessel stated to break down, but even with their effect, what got through was starting to badly weaken the outer frame of the superweapon.

"Warp power still holding on board _Annorax_ ," Hiven said. "Even the _Eternals_ are having trouble getting a read – it looks like it's just got main sensors online again."

"Is the temporal core charge building?" An'riel asked, "Bring us about, and ready tactical plan five."

"It must be, we're seeing something like we saw at the Temporal Accords battle, some very high-frequency subspace scanning against everything near Noye's ship," Hiven said.

"You want to fire it up?" Tovan asked.

"Not yet," An'riel said, "There was Noye's _other_ trick we saw before."

" _Eternals_ are trying to jam his sensor sweeps with their own; some sort of charge that's playing with the uncertainty limit," Hiven said. "Plasma rupture on _Annorax_! Temporal distortions detected; there's another _Annorax_ appearing." Indeed, visible was a hazy mirage twin, but this distortion's weapons were real as well, fighters began to explode faster than their replacements could be readied, and An'riel's repeater on fleet status could see the slow downward shield progression was working against them.

"There it is," An'riel said. "eisHesTovan, execute Program Devron."

The bizarre future-ships hadn't been the only piece of temporal research the Alliance was working on. Technically, they were still working on the ships, they were here anyway. Research on other methodologies of countering time travel, especially in how to force time travelers back to their era, was ongoing.

This was something like generating a subspace rift, but along another axis of spacetime entirely. A dimension, or a vector, against the normal progression of the universe, that existed to fill in the model of the universe. But 'anti-time' could exist in reality too, for a little while.

 _Sparrowhawk's_ deflector worked an elaborate and delicate progression of high-energy projections. The bridge lights flickered, there was some backlash, and she could feel through the deck an EPS conduit popping somewhere as it absorbed the transient flares. Some of the modules would have to be replaced before they could do this again; it was not a fast-firing technique, but it worked here in the future as it had in their test firings near the old Neutral Zone.

A rainbow corona highlighted the area effected. It started to shrink immediately, rejected by reality, but the aberration was able to continue for a little while. _Annorax_ appeared paused, as causality around it was delayed or even regressed. The eye had difficulty progressing what was going on, as it was far outside relativistic physics. What happened inside was certainly worse, as items moved in different temporal frames. More plasma blew from _Annorax's_ hull, and its duplicate brought here shimmered and vanished, blown back to its world.

The fleet's fire, with one target again, reconcentrated, then concentrated again as the effects of the slower time frame took hold. Energy fire appeared distorted, and torpedoes traced odd trails, but as beams cycled in regular time, they seemed half again as fast in _Annorax's_ state.

As the effect finally collapsed, Noye's feared vessel lay quiescent. Oxygen or worse escaped from hull rents, and its engines and weapons had gone dark, shields down.

"Main power aboard is down. Far fewer life signs than Alliance recommended compliment, many fading. I have a tactical beam in spot near the bridge where life support is stable," Hiven said as the bridge surveyed the fleet's handiwork.

"Bring us down, it's time to end this. You have the conn. Keep close scan for any launched escape pods or shuttlecraft. Team One to transporter room three for a commando strike, then. Have Satra meet us there," An'riel said, "Any decoys we have left, start sending them over. Ask the other ships to ready triage and engineering teams after we investigate." She rose from her chair, as her other preferred ground strike team left their consoles to join in the turbolift.

Tovan spoke as soon as it was her upper staff with just her as the turbolift whirred through the warbird. "Not for the record, but we could let the other ships handle this as well, our security personnel's been pretty overextended between the boarding action on _Enterprise_ and the damage we took."

"True, but we have actually been aboard _Annorax_ ," An'riel said. "I would rather move fast and secure the computers. If we beam aboard a few hundred troops, Noye may panic and self-destruct. Five may seem less of a challenge, letting him continue trying to escape."

"He could blow himself up anyway," Veril pointed out.

"Then we lose five people instead of two hundred, but the Krenim do not seem, as a culture, to understand the value to others of the honor of loss, when needed to safeguard operations," An'riel said. There were nods from that, except Jalel.

* * *

An'riel and her chosen friends beamed aboard and stiffened – the air smelled of smoke and they could hear flames crackling from somewhere down the dark, alien-designed corridor. The worst enemy of all spacers was loose. She and Satra pulled tricorders when there was no immediate need for weapons.

"No chemical suppression, no force fields," An'riel remarked.

"No life signs until the bridge," Satra said, "Life support is functioning otherwise – it's pumping in extra oxygen to compensate. I wouldn't recommend lingering though."

The group drew weapons and moved, pausing briefly where they reached where the wall was burning. Veril studied it momentarily. "Admiral," the Reman said, "This didn't just happen a minute ago – this circuitry has been burning awhile." She pulled a tricorder and checked something. "It looks like power tried to be routed in it again; there was a second overload."

"We are less than twenty meters than the bridge," An'riel said, "Damage control would be well-informed not to reroute."

"I don't know," Veril said simply. An'riel's communicator chirped, and she answered.

"We're reading a fluctuating level of chroniton energy within Annorax, Admiral," Hiven said over the link, "Their temporal drive may have taken damage in the fight and become unstable. I suggest securing it and shutting down the temporal core… before it reaches critical levels."

"Understood," An'riel said, "Let me know if the levels go critical." She shut the channel. "Let us move, stun where possible" she directed, and pulled her pistol again.

The five ran down the short corridor, stopping at the bridge hatch. A quick scan showed it unsecured, and with a hand gesture, Jalel, carrying a heavy antiproton and assault gear, breached first, swinging right as the Republic officers after he swung left, and opening up.

An experienced eye took in a moment Noye wasn't here, in fact, far fewer personnel than she expected. From their positions in good firing points, but not anywhere near the consoles, these were security troops. Several consoles on the bridge were smoldering as well, though from the brighter flames compared to the corridor, this was probably battle damage.

Jalel's Iconian-tuned gear had held up the initial fire, and his antiproton fire had the Kremin insurgents quickly suppressed, allowing the others to flank in a move they'd pulled before. The 'stun' on a plasma-disruptor wasn't a pleasant experience, but the security guards would be in a better position than many seemed on the ship.

She briefly directed Tovan and Jalel to bind them as Veril put out the bridge fires. An'riel gave the Kremin security no more thought as she pulled a PADD containing the last known security hierarchy for the ship, along with a set of polymorphic virii to 'massage' the ship into accepting them. The fourth combination worked. "The main computer is up and I have access. I do not see any delete jobs running but shutting down modification," she said.

She worked to lock the memory to read-only status, and then accessed the temporal core controls, but got only an error message in response. "Veril, is that science by you?" An'riel asked, "The lines from the main computer are down, that should have a dedicated subprocessor link." The Reman nodded, and the flag officer went over for a moment, but also to have the console buzz. The control conduits gave no single; severed at source.

Tovan had worked over to lock down helm and tactical, and reported in as An'riel worked to try and subvert the comm issues. "Admiral, helm still has recent events in the buffer; they left pretty quickly. I'm seeing a temporal vector subroutine was run; and then a whole mass of errors."

"What?" was all the time An'riel had to ask before the main viewer kicked in.

Noye peered at them through the remaining smoke on the bridge, preening. "Sorry I couldn't be there to greet you in person, Admiral," he said, features briefly twisting in hatred, "I'm afraid I had more pressing matters to attend to. Rest assured, I'll be dealing with your little band of thugs soon enough."

"If you want a fight," An'riel suggested, "we are right here. Come on up." Noye closed the channel instead. An'riel turned back to the science console, Noye had severed the links to the core, but the other sensor nets were still up, what was left of them.

"Satra, help me cross-reference these bio-signs," An'riel ordered, "The biggest concentration is in engineering but Noye could be trying for a smallcraft. Tovan, see if you can get Starfleet to send some security to get this locked down."

The doctor said, "We have Noye's structure up to a few hours ago, you work on the sensor gain, I'll check the biometrics." The two worked in well-experienced silence for a few minutes, before Satra had the answer. "He's definitely in Temporal Engineering."

Veril added, "Power's being moved from all over the ship down there; half the decks are already down to emergency life support."

An'riel's communicator chimed. "Admiral – emergency message from Admiral M'ara," Hiven said, "Noye is trying to open a temporal vortex without fixing the core. If it does, it could breach, and with all the temporal crisscrossing at this point, it could devastate most of the Beta Quadrant."

"Noye has lost his mind," An'riel said, "We need to get down there, now."

Jalel offered, "We still have most of the control functions that haven't been sabotaged; I can set a turbolift to the nearest functioning shaft and route the signal to damaged connections; so it won't show on the Engineering boards." Jalel pointed at a hatch still sealed. An'riel nodded, and motioned the others closer to the door while the security officer worked.

An'riel's mind worked furiously as she started to cut through the door seals, considering options. Ship life support was in no shape to try to subvert and flood the ship with gas, limiting the effectiveness of holding the bridge. And _Annorax_ had so much duranium and exotic energy fields between engineering and its hull that even an Orion raider would balk at trying a transporter directly in.

"Speed is of the essence, but a little more misdirection is a sound investment," An'riel said, "Hiven, Noye _is_ still focused on escape over revenge to throw the dice again; ask the other ships to start beaming in at the shuttlebays, let us hold off a conventional escape. Establish a jamming field against internal communications. We will conduct a surgical strike on Engineering, and attempt to stop the core. Failing that, we will try to shut down internal defenses to allow more beam-ins."

"Understood," Hiven said, "We'll flood their channels with chatter, and start the computer core download from _Annorax_ over the rest. Elements be with you Admiral."

* * *

Several brief firefights against the remnants of _Annorax's_ repair crews had seen them to the turbolift; they'd been lacking personal shielding, and so a trail of unconscious Krenim marked their path. Jalel's security modifications had held as well as he claimed, reaching the cavernous engineering bays without walking into an ambush.

"Satra, do you have him?" An'riel asked quietly as the team surveyed the space. There were several small groups gesturing frantically, but they were focused on consoles, not looking for humanoid trouble, and a good distance away."

Satra studied her tricorder briefly, but the doctor shook her head, "Not without tapping their internal sensors, An'riel. I might have him, but there's so much energy being thrown around him it'd take an hour to unscramble on this."

"The smartest thing is to keep his head down, and get his ship somewhere where we can't reinforce," Tovan noted. The room was big; with catwalks crisscrossing around a central pillar. The temporal core, something like a singularity in structure, was over their heads.

"Then we have him find us, or shut down the temporal core. Prepare to advance" An'riel said. She tapped her tricorder briefly. When next she spoke, it was greatly amplified. "Attention, Temporal Liberation Front members, your ship is being boarded by forces of Starfleet and the Republic; lay down your weapons and shut down the temporal core, or we cannot be responsible for your safety." She punctuated her statement by shooting out a nearby console, which exploded in a satisfying shower of sparks.

Most of the crew, surprised to have enemies so deep in the hull, broke from their consoles and fled. Long-range antiproton fire, scattered at this point, returned towards them.

Tovan and Jalel's mouths dropped open as they started running for cover. Veril took some pity towards the gunners. "Backup emergency power distribution console. Nothing but a light show at this point."

"It certainly made _my_ heart skip a few beats," Tovan muttered.

The group dove forward into battle. Security had been moved to the second level to defend the shuttlebay passages, and antiproton fire started to rain from above, setting their shields sparkling into visibility as they fought off the beams and radiation. Unfortunately for the security team, the catwalk was built of gratings, not solid -leaving them visible.

Gravity was no fear to energy weapons; and Tovan and Jalel opened up with accurate return plasma and antiproton fire. Most of the Krenim scattered as energy fire blew holes in the scaffolding, only for the two to scatter backwards as the catwalk electrified, bolts starting to rain down.

"Feedback inducer," An'riel warned, and dropped back as Veril set up a shield generator, as the Krenim fire had literally doubled. Her shields aglow with Chernekov radiation within the dome, she scrambled belt pouches onto her tricorder, setting a complex set of radiation wavebands. The Krenim generator wasn't sure what to make of the energy pattern enough to send it back at them. Seeing it, Satra added her own set of exotic particles.

The field generator the Krenim was using was an exotic piece even for transtator equipment. The hyperonic and neutronic clouds did bad things to unprepared neural nets, biological and cybernetic, causing random spikes and jolts. The Krenim response, as they started to push forward, stiffened and slowed as they were caught in the radiation, before the explosion of the generator, its safety systems gone, scattered them.

"Take the floor out!" An'riel directed. Tovan was using a high-density beam rifle from Republic stores; though upgraded a bit in capability as officer prerogative. Given a good chunk of its power cell, it could fire a practically solid cylinder of plasma, knocking even shielded enemies around. The Krenim were shielded enough that the brief exposure didn't take their shields out.

Against mere metal, it was overkill – Tovan took out two of the catwalk supports, the nearer railing, and a good chunk of the floor. Screaming, two of the Krenim fell before the noise was silenced. Elements had blessed them; as the other three in the group had sufficient reflexes to find themselves hanging off the remaining supported structure. Then, it was just a piece of grim work to be able to safely take the stairs.

No more opposition presented itself until they reached the core itself. The structure spinning in the middle of the transparent aluminum observation windows flatly refused to resolve itself to the Rihannsu retina, but An'riel had seen that before at the Alliance research labs, and knew better than to observe it too long.

True enough, Noye was standing on the other side at the primary console, seemingly transfixed. An'riel tried a snapshot but it burned on his shields. Shaken from his reverie of times never past, Noye snarled, "I suppose it was inevitable, so be it. It's time. Time I put an end this charade, and to you! I will deal with you myself!"

With a grandiose wave, Noye deployed several generators, practically simultaneously. An'riel had a brief moment to wonder how far down the timeline it took to shift that much mass with a personal-sized transporter. Then, she was busy – signaling Jalel and Satra to move back around the temporal core to flank.

An'riel found herself ducking – Noye was concentrating solely on her, and she was okay with that, as the other four poured fire into his field equipment. She hadn't expected him to be this good a shot – the scientist had avoided personal conflict in their previous encounters.

But there was one of him, and his weapons were no match for even the Admiral of the twisted alternate _Enterprise-F_. As his shield started to collapse, he slammed a button on the main console; spinning a forcefield around himself their weapons simply absorbed into.

Noye started to laugh as An'riel juggled her tricorder back open. Tovan kept futilely shooting into it as Noye went back to the main console.

"It is feeding off the remaining charge in the core," she said, "The field does not cover all the power conduits, so help me trace Veril." The Reman nodded as Noye screamed, and slammed open a communicator.

"Handle them! I must bring the temporal core back on line!" he said. Doors leading to the shuttlebay opened, and a small group of Krenim marines came out.

"Bringing in the rest of the reserve, Noye?" An'riel asked. They couldn't scan the whole ship from here, but, "So how thin does that stretch your lines? How many assault shuttles have boarded? How will you stop them if we fail?" She paused, briefly. "How many followers do you have left?"

"Quiet! I will finish this! I will fix this" Noye yelled back.

"Switch weapons to lethal mode," An'riel said, "Noye considers them without value and containment will already be an issue. Veril, start on the panels." The others nodded.

Noye huffed. "Are you trying to scare me," he asked, "I can still end this, with a little more time! I have _time_."

An'riel's first response was a direct blast against the first security responder, matched shortly thereafter by three other beams, and the brief sparkle of vaporization. "One of the questions we will be asking is how, exactly – but what time are you seeking? The Sphere Builders have lost already, and your ship is about to follow."

Noye said, "I can find more help, stop _you_ from stopping the Sphere Builders?"

An'riel stopped dumbstruck, only to suddenly find herself flying through the air. Her armor was saying something to her, and she didn't seem to be able to get up, or pick up her plasma pistol again.

* * *

Tovan saw An'riel actually so dumbstruck she was caught – the communications feed showed she was still alive, thankfully – the deflection must have landed _perfectly_ as her shields still showed as up. More importantly, Satra was moving to work her magic, so Tovan could focus on what he did. The last of the security group died with a scream that ended, stillborn, as there was no longer lungs, or even air, to build the sound.

He went to check on the Admiral (An'riel was definitely playing _that_ up around all the Starfleeters) and was relieved to see a fair amount of green flowing. Something must have splintered. Bad energy weapon hits didn't lead to bleeding.

"Congratulations," Tovan said to the Krenim idiot. "You've stopped her – we're still here. And, given Veril has your blueprints along, you're still doomed."

Noye couldn't actually see An'riel from his position. "Is your little pack of idiots so linear, Admiral?" Noye taunted, "I can stop you before you show up – bring more forces, let the Sphere Builders win! Have someone else from the Republic here instead of you, to lose the battle."

Tovan had to laugh at that. "And I thought our favorite Fleet Admiral was talking down your abilities," he said, taking a moment to glance around for more security before making a show of wiping tears.

"What?" Noye asked. "I have mastered time, forged alliances between powers!"

"And you think because she beat you, seh'Viriant is a tactical genius?" Tovan said. "I can think of four other fleet commanders _off-hand_ that are better at straight ship combat. And there's probably a hundred, or even a thousand captains who haven't risen so high who can do that job. She's pretty good on foot at the sneaky side, or the people side, but ship handling?"

Jalel moved his cover position closer to the Admiral. "How is she?" he asked Satra, who was scanning with some implement, while a few small blinky devices were on her head.

"Trying to keep her unconscious for a moment while I see about these blood vessels," Satra said, "So shut up and let me work."

"Right, then," Jalel said, and more loudly to Noye. "Seriously, she's learned a few exotic tricks and knows her way around the deflector, but she's no Garth. And even this battle, we were just handling the operational side – pretty workmanlike."

"Noye, it's pretty much not time that hates you, It's the best and brightest of the Galaxy just don't want to be wiped out," Tovan said in agreement., "I'm guessing you're getting a private galaxy out of this, personally." Or at least that was his bet with An'riel. She'd been going on something about lost loves in alternate timelines, but she was always a bit literary in her references.

"Figure you soldier types wouldn't understand _love_ , to reclaim my wife and-" Noye's proclamations were cut off as Veril finally cut the power to the weird bubble, and Jalel and Tovan did what well-trained soldier types did, and knocked out the bad guy.

" _Thank you_ ," came a voice, somewhat weakly, from An'riel, who Satra was keeping a firm arm on to keep her down. "At least, for making him shut up," she said, with a quaver – and that made Tovan nervous. An'riel usually kept herself wound up.

Jalel, apparently, had more important things in mind, "You said she was unconscious!" he said with real alarm.

"Hearing is the last thing to go," Satra said with a dismissive shrug.

* * *

As An'riel properly regained consciousness, and a pressure cast; it was over. Conduits lay like noodles strewn over the catwalk around the temporal core from Veril's sabotage, and she walked over only with some difficulty to where Tovan was finishing up the scans on Noye for any surprises with perhaps a bit too much vigor. Starfleet security, as their wont, was starting to crawl over the place.

"And so it ends… finish your bloody work, then. Send me to join Clauda in oblivion, as you sent the Tuterians and so many others. Kill me, if you have the stomach for it," Noye said, reaching deep for some dignity in An'riel's opinion.

"It is not your time Noye," An'riel said wearily, "You will live and face judgement for your crimes."

Noye was undeterred. "This won't end with me," He promised, "Others are out there, watching. They see your tyranny, and they'll rise up, just as I did. Your time will come… pity I won't be there to see it."

" _Sparrowhawk_ ," An'riel said in response, "Noye is in custody and cleared, beam directly to brig." Noye vanished in a flare of light.

"Finally," Veril opined, "Now that the other engineers were here to trace all the leads, I think we have this thing disconnected from all of Noye's backups, we just need to purge it safely." She gestured with a flourish at the main console.

"So, not complicated then?" An'riel asked, forcing a smile. Veril's gargoyle face broke into an abashed grin.

"It seemed appropriate for history, we keep getting involved in this damn thing," Veril said.

"Very well," An'riel acknowledged, and went up where the program had been set up. A touch of a button, and the heart of the _Annorax_ superweapon slowed, a pulsing noise coming into audible range before dying completely. At the same time, glows that had only impressed the retina suddenly ceased.

"Now we just arrange a tow, and try to figure out how explain this without disrupting time more," Veril said.

"I guess New Khitomer to try and get our stories straight?" Jalel offered, "Though we're low on navigators."

"Sorry I'm late," came a cheerful voice behind them. An'riel turned, familiar with the voice. Sure enough, Daniels was standing behind them, clear of scars and injuries.

"Daniels?" Tovan asked, "Aren't you?"

"Dead?" Daniels said. "In a matter of speaking. Stopping Noye altered the timeline in a number of ways, including one where I lived." There was a distinct lack of elation.

An'riel asked, "Is Galorndon Core habitable? Was the Na'kuhl sun still attacked?"

"No and yes," Daniels said, confused.

"Then we accomplished little extra," An'riel concluded, "The villain is done, but unlike the epics, there is much left to do."

"Right," Daniels said, still seeming confused, "Then we'll get all the allies gathered up at New Khitomer so we can sort you to the correct points in spacetime."

An'riel merely nodded. They had won, in a war they had mere glimpses of in a grand battle whose factors they could not decipher. But perhaps the chapter was finally at a close.

* * *

Author's Note: Just about done – the story as a whole took longer to write than I'd initially hoped, and it's not done – quick series of epilogues for everyone except Daniels, who will hopefully leave people alone going forward.

An'riel generally does the 'main' storyline missions in continuity, but having one where she is, as exciting as the mission was to play and glorious, there are pieces of what's going on that only part of the characters have, and other parts that are pretty clearly not being explained.

No wonder everyone is ready to get to exploration, eh? On the other hand, with Noye's databanks, and the 'nexus point' of the Battle of Procyon V secure in a victory for everyone who isn't a Sphere Builder, presumably Captain Walker further downstream can clean up stuff by removing attempts to change time…


	6. Epilogue

At the Jaws of Fenrir

by tremor3258

Epilogue

* * *

 _New Khitomer, 28_ _th_ _century, aboard the Fuso_

Captain Antonine Revka peered at the main control circuit trunk coming out of her bridge and tried not to wince. Even given the odd future-tech, what should be present were a series of optical cables connected to dark matrices, full of isolinear storage chips, easy to access. Instead, it looked something like coral, mixed with melted plaster, that someone had set on fire. Gleams of white optic cable were occasionally visible through the whole mess.

"We didn't even get hit near the bridge," she protested to Tela. The chief engineer shrugged in response.

"We didn't notice until we started trying to do repairs – somehow, this is a valid combination, if you never want to change, fix, or maintain it again," the Tiburonian replied, "But all that entropy had to go somewhere, it seemed. You don't even want to see what the battery compartments look like."

"Make sure we've got it all recorded, then. I have to get to this final cover-up, er, wrap-up." Antonine ordered, resisting the urge to poke at it.

"See if you can get us time-travelled directly into a repair bay," Tela suggested, "I have no idea what they've done to, say, the warp core radiation linings.". Antonine nodded and departed the bridge.

* * *

 _New Khitomer station_

The meeting room was far quieter and more subdued than the one only a few relative hours before. They could have fit the command staff of all the remaining temporal ships in with no issue now, but this was still captains only.

There were more captains than previously – Captain Montgomery Scott, patron saint of engineering, was still here, chatting with Chekov. Captains Walker, S'eeris, and Vakek were present, representing the more coordinated timeships of the 29th century. Daniels, as the ghost at the feast and technically Antonine's main temporal contact, was looking out the window.

Thankfully, Foch and her counterpart from this timeline were there, and looking like they'd also found time to shower and a fresh uniform. While her twin/identical duplicate waved, Foch merely nodded. The man rarely stopped talking. Antonine swallowed as she approached.

"I think the current consensus is to simply judge casualties as occurring in action against the Terran Empire on a successful campaign," Dean warned her, "So make sure to tell the crew that. Daniels is also apparently unable to secure additional supplies or replacements for the temporal ships."

"The future's writing us off?" Antonine said in some surprise.

"More the Alliance," Admiral Revka said. "We have full fleet battle data of the ships; which were only granted to the Federation with our allies ignored. Their power is obvious, and a fleet devoted solely to the Federation from a future is inherently suspect given the realities of the current era."

"Restocking it at this point, giving Starfleet a secret fleet of time-travelling ships to impose our vision of history on, er, history," Dean said, "The Empire and the Republic are willing to risk a breach and given everything we went through, I would wish them well of it." He sighed. "I will miss the _Roland_ though. Perhaps there's a nice station command somewhere."

"Hah!" Admiral Revka exclaimed. "Maybe back in the old days a hero and proven commander was given a nice administrative approach – but," she stopped, sighing, "Ignore that – you're the captain, the hero, the special powers at the right point to have saved history. Ignore all the reasonable work of technology, crew, and training, it was your judgement at the moment that saved the day, that history and Starfleet will remember, and they'll keep throwing you at it, over and over again."

"We'll do it, too, because it's what is asked, and we are Starfleet officers, and do our duty, and if it is a dangerous situation, we couldn't sit by the sidelines when we can help," Revka said, sounding more apologetic, "Sorry, Antonine, you're probably going to get the same." Admiral Revka shook herself briefly.

Antonine blinked at herself in surprise.

"Sorry," Revka said, "Just seems every time's a fire's out something happens; but Captain Foch; ships get made a lot faster than the old days. You'll be surprised how fast berths open up, especially with experience. Starfleet Command will probably give you a choice of ships."

"You are Starfleet Command," Antonine pointed out. Revka shrugged.

"That does increase your chances, then, doesn't it?" Revka said with a smile.

"Chance," Foch mused, "Our victory here adjusted the timelines _away_ from where they had been before, compared to whatever shape the battle took 'previously', perhaps without our intervention or the adjustment of the WHITE WIDOW group. Who knows what Daniel's plan our, or how the reverberations affect our past or the shape of the timeline."

"I can't be too alarmed at that," Antonine said, some latent anger of her own building in her voice, "And you probably shouldn't be either – I, after all, am torn away from a peaceful Federation due to a massive predestination paradox into a war-torn world. Said future decided rather than counter interventions of critical points in history like, say, Caleb V, they did just enough health they could fake your death and move you forward."

Revka said nothing more after that, though Foch nodded. The three stood in musing silence for the few minutes left until the meeting was called.

* * *

 _New Khitomer, two hours later_

If there was one thing out of the timeline mess, it seemed Chekov was still in charge, that much Foch could ascertain, even if Captain Scott seemed to talk more. His natural gregariousness was met by the Orion who he had helped drag into this mess – apparently crazed piratical war-leaders found Scotsmen attractive.

Many of the others were saying little; both versions of his friend Antonine were withdrawn, though sitting next to each other at least still. He was glad for that; family was important. The Romulan spoke only when asked questions directly – he wasn't sure what was bothering her. He'd never gotten a good read on Vulcans, and most Romulans he'd met in the future were the same, if more depressed.

"The trick is to list everything," the engineer was saying, "You list every stray superconducting fire, even down to the verra last bolt, and Logistics will wonder what you're trying to cover instead of just asking for a new computer core, instead of asking _why_ all this happened. Saved my bacon way back on Starbase 4, when a solar flare and – well, maybe I shouldn't say it with ladies present," the older gentleman finished, a bit embarrassed.

Chekov rolled his eyes with the strength of long practice. "With the cover story set, just one last thing. Noye is gone, but his allies are still out there. Any of them could try to take Procyon again, so we'll need to stay vigilant," he said, "But the fleet has been sent scattering back to its holes, their methods of stealth time travel isolated or destroyed. We will be waiting and ready. Thank you all."

He paced away from the table, and others stood, recognizing the dismissal. "So for now, this is goodbye," Chekov said, a trace of sadness in his voice.

"Good to see you again, my old friend," Scott said, voice thickening as he stood. Foch gave the two a jaunty wave – he'd gotten to share drinks with the famous crew, after a (what else?) shootout with the Klingons. It was back in their day, of course. "Well, Scotty," Chekov said, moving to stand by him, "Let's see about getting you back to the 24th century."

"Do ye mind a quick stop in the 23rd first? I'd like to see the Enterprise – our Enterprise – one last time," Scotty asked, quieter.

"I think that can be arranged, old friend," Chekov said, and signaled the _Pastak_. "Two to beam up." The two vanished, in the traditional flare of light. He had seen them back in their days, but time travel showed, those days came around again.

That was worth a smile, and time travel _was_ , as D'ellian had shown, being worked out as fullscale in his 'home time' in 2411. Someday captains would explore it just as they had space; perhaps not his generation… but he had skipped over a few, who knew what the future held.

On that thought, he wandered towards the window. The view from here was

"Absolutely breathtaking, is it not?" The Romulan had come up to ask, enjoyment racing through her voice. Perhaps she did not like paperwork.

"That is not a point to argue. I have seen many starscapes, but few compare," Foch said, "And the technology is inspiring – how far humanity, if we can do this with our tools, how great the souls?"

The Romulan made a bit of a tch noise. "Ah," Foch said, "I did not mean humanity in the Terran sense, or even to include the Englishman, but as all those species of explorers."

"I know," Admiral seh'Virinat assured, "The lesser meaning was a common point in propaganda as a child. We had a few veterans back from the Klingon alliance days who would assure us of Federation chauvinism. It was only in the last decade, our time, we have been allowed to pick up the difference."

"You seem more relaxed," Foch observed, "Were you also fond of the Scotsman, and are glad there are no winners?"

She chuckled, briefly. The Romulan tilted her head briefly. Foch looked over, seeing Daniels. He was talking briefly to a beefy Gorn; one of the future leaders. "Not in the manner you mean; the engineer was astonishing competent, but most engineers who rise to leaders are. You should meet my own chief, she is very young, but very good."

"You admire competence?" Foch asked.

"I try to work with the best, when I can. Their loyalty and efforts have saved my life, though history focuses on leaders," the admiral replied, "Our period of history has brought the very new and the very competent as the sole survivors, but I did not know you. Your partner is new."

"She is very competent, though not trained for wartime," Foch said, defending the young Antonine, though both were young. It was a shock to have gone from being a young captain to almost geriatric in this era of command attrition.

"I am pleased to have worked with everyone in the squadron, whether history knows of them," the Romulan said, "I do not know if history will know of us here, but I think it knows you more than you like."  
"Your security clearance could probably answer that," Foch replied.

"True," Admiral seh'Virinat bobbed her head, "But your question nestles a deeper question, with Daniels returned. He is closest to you of anyone here." Her words were becoming more clipped.

"If the ghosts of the dead at the Core drive you," Foch said, "I understand, but I was there to _prevent_ it, whatever his agenda."

"I do not believe it to be the same," she replied, "As that timeline ended in death and failure, but our efforts have aborted it. Here he is, alive again, in whatever world we work to forge. The Republic appreciates the phoenix – we must believe in it."

"The temporal ships are headed to the breakers' yard, for the most part," Foch said, "We must leave the past to the future for a while."

"Yes, but one bird flocks to another regardless," the Romulan said, "And the future still relies on the past. You have managed to stand, brave and stalwart, through the winds of changing times, but remember all are not touched – this Daniels may prefer the tools of the old, but consider he is, still, a difference creature."

"You certainly appear brave and stalwart, and the Orion has not stopped preening since the other ships showed up," Foch said.

"Successful KDF officers always must preen; they have the most politicized of the militaries, yet another danger to the Empire," seh'Virinat replied, "She is very good at it. And I am born of stock of Romulus, surely you do not trust how I appear?" she finished with a light laugh.

"No," Foch admitted, "But you are very good."

"Thank you," she replied, and sobered, "Perhaps it will be honest some day through society, there seems to be hope for that, if we can keep the story going." She glanced, sidelong. "He wants to talk to you," she continued, "I will let him have the moment."

"He is the ultimate joker card," Foch said, "Would we not need him as a trump so often, and perhaps we will meet in more certain times." The Admiral bowed again and moved off.

Daniels, for once, did not pop into view, but merely strode. Foch stared out the window, staring. If the future was secure, naturally they wouldn't want him back, so best take in while he could.

"It's good to know they're out there. people who come through in the end, people like you," Daniels said, "What you did today will remain secret. No parades, no celebrations. Still, there's comfort in knowing the timeline's secure. Take pride in that. On behalf of myself, and the countless others you saved today, thank you."

"I lived with that before, I can again, even if the Klingons can't" Foch said, "But thank _you_ , as I don't think I got the chance."

"For?" Daniels asked.

"Saving my crew, and myself, and something of the old _Conestoga_ ," Foch said. "You didn't have to. Space was far more distant in my time, the threats divided by politics more conflicting worldviews, and they are starting on the explorations that lead to your time, which I can barely imagine. What I will do for them with time secure, who can say?"

Foch turned, stroked his mustache briefly, and gazed at the various captains remaining, time-drifted, or merely very capable. Strutting Orions and pride-shattered Romulans building honor, Starfleet looking at all this and making it better.

"There are many heroes in this era, I'm not sure it needed more, but thank you for pulling my crew when you thought it needed more," Foch said warmly.

Daniels shrugged. "The timeline we seek, there are compromises, but we do try and save lives when we can."

"I know, and I'm closer to all them when I think about your methodologies, but it puts you far better than who we face, no?"

* * *

 _New Romulus, three days after temporal transit, subjective_

"So, Fleet Admiral, this completes your briefing on WHITE WIDOW. If we had known, we would have had sealed orders on your computer core. It would have given leverage, perhaps"Obisek said, and turned to look out the window, amid the bustle of the Republic's primary shipyard. The scars of the Iconian War were fading. D'Tan had agreed to yet another dozen docks and a new light warbird line. Out there was An'riel's fleet group, that had gone to DS9 to shake the future, waiting reassignment.

"Who can say when time travel calls? It as imprecise a science as history," An'riel said, "As I am sure it indicates you are not here."

Obisek laughed at that, deep, richly, and dangerously. "Ah, history is a pattern, not always true, and often rewritten to the needs of the present. You and I should have been at each other's throats again and again. D'Tan should have been thrown in an asylum for what he dared think. And once was a pack of madmen have become the Republic, and the glorious Tal Shiar a pack of madmen."

"And good days these are. And I hesitate to correct, but I must, for to let one's circumstances control thoughts seems to be the greatest danger in the future we saw. Thinking was not D'Tan's madness," An'riel said, "Speaking – that was the madness. But he spoke for the people the way the leaders did not"

"But our freedom came from such willingness," Obisek mused, "Especially since you have had one foot in the future; is it the leaders who bring people, or do they merely the tongue of the people? I never sought my position, as you did not."

"And yet the positions we have not sought, you and I have enough voice we could shatter the Senate and change history for our people, were a situation mad enough," An'riel said, "With a third we could perhaps rule." The two held gazes on each other and burst out laughing at the thought of bringing back the old dictators.

"But I appreciate an ear that can read the briefing both quietly and quickly to all the Republic's halls of power, civilian and military," An'riel said. "I am sure Starfleet is typing up a far fuller analysis, and you have _Sparrowhawk's_ databanks while she refits."

"Rarely have I seen a ship so systematically abused," Obisek said , "A terrifying weapon, the Spheres, to contemplate its effects on flesh."

"I could show you," An'riel said, more clipped, "It was not kind. Neither are its brethren, but they are like us, but even more withdrawn into their shells – I wonder if they _have_ a voice a leader could find to break them of their cycle."

"The Republic administers the Sphere," Obisek said, "We have some ability with their technology. We will work to seek them out; we have the physical access to their space we do not with the Na'kuhl. For the most part, we can supply words while the Federation seeks to undo _that_ future."

"We must keep pushing for them to succeed," An'riel said, "Daniels existence shows that future, terrified of the past, is a possibility that must be maintained. We must work for a better one."

"Agreed," Obisek said, "A sense of a future being fulfilled nearly killed the Galaxy. We must strive and quest more, and find leaders of voice." Obisek smiled a gargoyle smile, "Actually, one voice has made its way to us, via the Diplomatic Corps."

"Oh? Another diplomatic gathering?" An'riel said, "I must decline, if possible. I fear I am a plague on them."

"Though such disasters end up narrowly averted through your actions," Obisek said, "For such is the curse of the worthy who do not seek responsibility. No, this is another rescue of yours. While the Lukari are far away, they are a technic civilization of good size on the edge of charted space. All seek influence, for the rewards of a base there are many, and the Lukari's recent brush with disaster has inspired them the stars."

'Yes," An'riel said, "They have reached a strong technological base without outside cross-pollination. Not all can spread wings and grasp the stars, but they seem strong, and even impressed the Chancellor. If they do decide to spread out, they could be a very strong ally, independent or within the Federation."

"They also impressed the Chancellor's trusted right-hand," Obisek said, "The Gorn have granted them a cruiser as a pilot program while they design a series of their own starships. We have offered technical assistance, and the Federation, but the wily St'asss stole a march. Despite this, your past actions saving their entire planet impressed them, and they asked for you to join on their first charting mission."

Inwardly, An'riel sighed, to be back in the breach. Aloud, she said, "I have done little exploring, but I hope to live long enough the Republic will be able to look outward, it could be good experience for myself and the Lukari. What transport is available? I doubt they will wait for _Sparrowhawk's_ refit."

Obisek said, "The _Lahai_ will complete its shakedown soon, and will let you serve as flag. You served on one of the _Ha'nom_ , did you not? Kererek would like you to evaluate the class, and showcase the Republic is keeping current. You will have some time for leave, and your crew more."

"I would not mind time to process," An'riel admitted with hidden relief, "To think of recent time."

"It will be a good ship for that," Obisek said, "The _Ha'nom_ was clearly falling behind the technical curve, and the _Laenas_ class's advanced particle rigs have shown some usefulness in duplicating the techniques of Starfleet's shadow temporal fleet."

"I will see what I can use from that," An'riel said, "We have all the fleet tactical data, whether the commanders of past ages quite realized what they were giving up. I happily accept. It would be easy for the Senate to focus in. The Lukari make a good rallying cry to avoid complacency."

"Agreed, but you have a few weeks," Obisek said, "Republic Intelligence will want your help in going over the base data, but you can be based in the capital rather than here in the cold metal."

"Yes, we will need to move quickly, I am sure Starfleet will have its analysts with a copy to read in another two weeks, perhaps one if they are very eager," An'riel theorized. "What the future will make of that, we will leave to them. You and I know, we are here, we fight, we do not allow things to happen simply as someone says they must. The future was glorious. I am sure we can do better."

"Oh yes," Obisek said, the shadows seeming to creep up behind them, "Even a paradise can be enslaving. There is you, I, and many others – D'Tan keeps an eye out for those of us. It is not an easy life, but," Obisek stopped, gestured to New Romulus, where both children of the twin worlds lived in peace, the vast fleets built with technology far beyond the Empire's understanding, and out towards the many colony worlds growing under the phoenix's wings.

"But, though I know not shape it will be in the end, I like to think it will be a rewarding one," Obisek concluded. With a tap of a console on the last word, he beamed out.

An'riel stared at the space the Reman leader, far busier than her, had been. Obisek's itinerary waited for no one, even him, and turned back to the view again. Her adopted home world had not the great sky of New Khitomer, dominated instead by the Azure Nebula. The structures and ships could be measured in hundreds of meters instead of kilometers, but the accomplishments and drive equaled that future technology.

She tapped her own communicator after another minute. "Shipyard control, please ready transport for Fleet Admiral seh'Virinat to Command." Duty, after all, continued, each day into the future.

* * *

 _Earth Spacedock, two weeks after transit_

"Tac fleet has completed its first-run, and the advanced Engineering teams and temporal research have started their analysis. I have the compiled precis, and the casualty lists," Admiral Revka said, standing at attention. Captain Kurland was at her elbow, sweating a little – by the average rank in the room, he didn't even matter.

Starfleet's Chiefs of Operations, Security, and Intelligence were gathered as a review board. Admiral Quinn was off to the side in his own base. Admiral Chakotay was chairing.

"And have you managed to track the ships that did not make the rendezvous?" he asked, "The possibility of them turning rogue, especially under cover of such an important operation, has to be asked."

"I took advantage of the array being staffed after the Procyon Nexus," Antonine said heavily. "We detected sufficient mass to account, but it wasn't intact. The mass temporal jump had more variables than everyone was able to compensate for, going from the remaining ship's logs. We weren't able to interview all the engineering and bridge crews, and the tactical situation didn't allow complete core pulls."

"This seems a tremendous failure in design," Chakotay observed.

"Impossible to tell, Admiral – interviews showed the abilities for the ships were locked to the crew; with many systems working off auxiliary control or read-locked data banks. Having seen a couple of the ships in action up close finally, I would definitely deploy them differently in a second battle," Antonine said.

"We didn't get any more information, Admiral," the head of Engineering broke in, casting a glance at Chakotay. "Simply they would be useful against the Na'kuhl, an extra unexpected fleet to match their foreknowledge."

"We had been led to believe the temporally lost had been gathered to a position where new Starfleet captains were not given much of a look," Chakotay said, "It gave some cover for records to allow our forces to counterstrike to maintain the timeline. Our being cannon fodder wasn't mentioned, but Procyon V was also simply listed as an example of a critical event."

"I don't doubt that, Admiral," Antonine said, "But I worry about your sources. Some of the items in the timeline seem to be actively changed, and maintained in that state, rather than trying for an uncorrupted timeline, or to correct previous incursions. The ethics of that, are… lacking."

"Agreed," said the Operations chief, "And that is being taken under evaluation. Rest assured, Admiral, we are aware you were there first-hand, and your judgement has been proven time and again. And the sacrifice of those ships and crew has had benefits. The Badlands has been completely quiet; the Terran Empire incursions have stopped, a bleeding ulcer on the trans-Cardassian front is staunched, giving us more forces for our other commitments."

Chakotay said, "The raw dump from the _Annorax_ buffers has also helped eliminate the remaining Na'kuhl terrorist nests. We can focus our efforts on trying to crack the diplomatic problem with the _current_ Na'kuhl. They'll have to be 'black' commendations, but you've earned another round of medals."

"I'm not the only one who needs commendations; the temporal fleet died twice for Starfleet," Antonine insisted, "That's more than anyone should be asked." The Admiral board nodded at that. They started to look around, and Quinn coughed, noticeably.

"Ah, yes. That leaves us with getting your fleet reorganized for peacetime duties, Admiral," the Operations head said. "The _Nagato_ will avoid the scrapyard yet again, but it's not designed for frontier operations; we'll rotate it back to Tacfleet if you have no objections." Antonine nodded.

"The _Trafalgar_ is a well-found ship, tough and with an excellent short-range sensor suite for surveying," Antonine said. "It's a bit cramped for full staff, but a refit with that in mind should help alleviate the problem."

"True, it can certainly handle a battle, but operationally, it's difficult to run a fleet from," Quinn noted. "And I think your field actions show you're still more valuable not commanding a sector base."

"There aren't many ships with the space and communications capacity for full command," Antoine said, "And if the Bajoran sectors are rotating to peacetime, I can't imagine any of the _Presidios_ are intended. Those are combat ships."

"Well, all Starfleet ships are to some degree," Chakotay noted, "But one of the _Yorktown_ will be completing at Utopia Planitia if you would take it. I know you put in a request when the _Nagato_ was assigned, and thanks to refitting damaged craft, the backlog has caught up."

"That's an _Odyssey_ ," Antonine identified, somewhat breathless. Quinn was hiding a smile.

'Was really," Chakotay said, "Damaged in the Iconian war with most of our super-heavies. But it's reborn. We can only hope that after all this fighting, it's next life is more peaceful."

* * *

 _Delta Command_ , _2411 – subjective three weeks after temporal transit_.

"Captain Revka?" a short Betazoid woman, barely taller than her, wearing the insignia of a Rear Admiral (lower half), exchanged salutes. "Rear Admiral Vexa," Formalities done, she held out a hand to shake.

"Nice to meet you," Antonine said politely, matching the grip.

"I'd like to welcome you and the _Franklin_ to the Delta Quadrant," the Commodore said – she had to be even younger than Antonine. "I actually took some classes from your duplicate, and when your stint in Sirius Sector was done, I was happy to grab you."

"Well, she's still over in the Bajoran sectors," Antonine said, "Though she did manage to send regards." Admittedly, most of the call had been the two of them squealing, privately, over their new ships' from their ready rooms.

"I can't imagine what you've gone through," Vexa said, "There's so much to explore I'm surprised you stayed with Starfleet, but your record shows how much more mediation training than *I* got at the Academy, and with all the little pocket empires out here, the Alliance needs everyone who knows how to smooth over a situation, though it can get a little rough."

"My last command did involve some combat," Antonine understated, "But I'm organized; I can explore reality and space at the same time. Maybe even time, form what I hear of the Kremin. But the mission's the same, and I'm eager to dive into the frontier."

"We'll get a full briefing and a banquet on board the _Delphi,"_ Vexa promised. "Though a quick word of advice: don't get involved in time travel more than you have to. It doesn't really end well."

"I'll keep that in mind," Antonine said politely.

 _Deep Space K-13, unexplored space, two months later_.

"Bring the _Vanguard_ into close orbit, Ensign," Foch said with happiness, looking around. It was the largest bridge with the least people required Foch had the pleasure to command, and he was still getting the flow right, but it had _chairs_. And _armrests_ , and proper repeaters in them.

"Aye, sir," Ensign Vrell said. The Tellarite was new, but from this time, but he could handle the starbase-sized chunks of metal this time called cruisers, nimbly skirting the edge of the asteroid field that the station drifted near. The _Archon_ class massed a good fraction of the station.

"Tarsi, get the freighters ready to start unloading and hail the station," Foch directed to his first officer. The Andorian worked her console with a relish he hadn't seen of late. It felt good.

The face that appeared on screen was human, and familiar from an era his _old_ (in more ways than one) crew had thought behind forever. "Commander O'Ryan, this is Captain Foch," he said, "Nice to see you again."

"Foch – thought you got blown in that explosion that sent us here. We've had Romulans waking us, and the Klingons, well, I don't want to go into it but they calmed down once the first round of supplies arrived," the commander said, "I see you aren't dressed for mourning like everyone else, but where'd that over-engined monstrosity come from instead of your old ship?"

"That's a bit of a story. We got a, ah, dispensation for using an older uniform style," Foch said, "How I'm here is even a longer one, but we got authorized to this sector as soon as I heard. We have the rest of the long-range sensor gear to get that back in operation, and the freighters we have a real miracle on them. It's something called a transwarp gate, I don't understand all the math, but it'll put you in contact with the Federation core worlds."

"How? Or is it classified?" O'Ryan said, "It's been a mass of craziness. And Foch, the planet-"

"We know," Foch said firmly, "We're here to start checking on that once we can get you linked to the Fleet. We're taking care of our own first and getting you back in operation as a base, and we have time now – me and my crew have gone through the familiarization. We'll give you and those band of mad Klingons some refreshers, then back to work."

 _Daniels_ , Foch reflected, _this doesn't make for everything, and you could give some hints about whatever the hell wiped the planet, but thank you that they were still alive_. He put his concerns, of intelligence reports in Romulan space, of the strange lifelessness, out of his mind. There were people to bring forward.

* * *

 _2411, Atodes space, Three weeks after temporal transit, subjective, on board I.K.S. Demonslayer_

Thraak tapped well-laquered claws on a console, that shone with almost as great a gleam. All had been ordered to present the finest image of the Empire on board. Even the ready room was buffed, oiled, and polished. Even the supports were iridescently gleaming in the dim Klingon light.

"Problem, science, with the overload of their planetary disruptors?" Dahar Master D'ellian, gifted with birth in the Orion House of M'ara, blessed via victory with the friendship of the House of Martok, and cursed with the trust of the High Council, also asked. She also gleamed in the low light, high-end leathers, that despite appearance, were more ready for the battles of politics.

The many, many PADDs scattered over the desk hurt the imagery somewhat. They had, however, been stacked.

"We have accomplished great deeds, Dahar Master," Thraak said, "We have held the destiny of Empires in our hands. Such usually gives great rewards."

"A glorious tradition of the Empire," D'ellian said, "And so we have; we have a whole planet to bring into the Empire – land and resources and people to parcel out, under a glorious comprehensive system to loyal allies to ensure a well-ordered transition into the glorious Empire."

Thraak nodded, three gloriouses were a reminder in their old code system. Dressing to impress meant they hadn't been able to do their usual bug sweeps, and not all the forces were personally loyal. It did require some caution.

"A planet is grand," Thraak said, "But here on the edge of Romulan space? A fair way from your holdings in Orion space, and the enclaves built in the old Klingon colony grounds. I would have expected a capital ship as a reward for recent actions; to center a new battle fleet to defend or attack."

"I considered it," D'ellian admitted, "A rare opportunity for the prime of the shipyards, but a ship is limited power – it requires technicians, crews, shipyards, raw resources. Very useful, but limited as an expansion of a power base at this point, when we have begun attracting worthy mercenaries, and perhaps not worth wasting such a…. hard-won credit on."

"I appreciate your strategic vision," Thraak said honestly, "So why this planet?"

D'ellian stood, studying a model of her first command for a moment. "The Atodes were obviously the next power to be brought in as a tributary, far from the eyes of our allies. Doing as flawless a job as any Imperial would once again prove the strength of all races of Klingon," she said listlessly.

"A worthy goal," Thraak rumbled.

"And there is… a sort of debt," D'ellian said, "He will not understand it, or that I am paying it – in as little blood as possible. The Atodes could have been squabbled by border Houses for years. We will remind them, of the value of territory, of quick education, and a clean victory, without time to form resentments. They are used to Romulans, and their long memories, I understand it."

"You pay-off is to shatter their ground batteries in a single dramatic gesture, seize the high orbitals in a synchronized boarding wave followed by precision destruction of their military communication centers," Thraak said, drily, "And to conquer a planet _in your own name_."

"It is an unusual debt," D'ellian acknowledged, "But it was forged in unusual times. He nearly caught me by surprise. Perhaps his empathy towards them dulled them or sharpened him. I will not know. There is no fate where the Empire exists and they are free in a century. They see this, and do not understand all the virtues, so I go for the best possible present. If they see this as a failure, perhaps an example that will push them to do better next time? There are no do-overs, only what we do now"

Thraak nodded. For D'ellian, in more secure quarters, had said the last bit untold at New Khitomer.

* * *

 _New Khitomer, post-crisis debriefing_

"Captain S'eeris," D'ellian said politely. A tall and imposing warrior Gorn – but in Federation colors of the future. She still wasn't sure what to make of it.

"I would like to thank you for your work – I understand you are an operative of the Klingon Empire of that time, despite the prejudice still facing non-Imperials," the Gorn said.

D'ellian bowed slightly. "It is a matter of discretion and excelling" she said. "Let history be the judge of what tides it rises."

"That is wise," S'eeris said, "But I wished to let someone be rewarded; and you are the most _discrete_ component of having engineered this victory." D'ellian nodded. S'eeris's voice dropped even further, to where the translator barely registered his words.

"Our mission to stop the Na'kuhl temporal journeys, in association with the Romulan, caught us by surprise at the moment, but the preferred timeline of the future has changed," he showed a brief hologram, of an unremarkable star.

There were few candidates. "The Na'kuhl home system," she identified. He nodded. "Previously, we had been surprised it had not collapsed. Now, the Alliance has exhorted considerable effort to save the people."

"Why not tell them?" she asked, "The Federation is best placed to be able to provide the resources."

"It is _considerable_ effort," S'eeris said, "To arrange it politically and move opinion in the councils of power. We do not wish to let them coast, the effects of that were visible at Procyon."

"But knocked out of complacency in your time?" D'ellian said acidly, "Very well, I shall treasure this, that sins can yet be overwritten, despite efforts at predestination."

"I have travelled to many periods and met many people," the Gorn said, "Most predictions of the future end in favor; perhaps even this one still."

* * *

 _2411, stooping to conquer_

"So the Empire will grow with less chaos, and perhaps the Atodes will rise to partner as our peoples," D'ellian said, "That I can do now. Ships I can acquire later. The period of chaos is coming to an end, and the investments made to help stabilize will show profit."

"Then to your future," Thraak said.

"To ours," D'ellian corrected, "And the rest of the crew. We find honor, and yes, glory. Let the future bring what it will; we are ready. Now, science officer – if the plans against the batteries are finalized, let us consider the communication centers."

 _Demonslayer_ continued, in the pack of ships heading to the yet-unready world. The Galaxy would look back later as this a time of relative peace, but history and time were far more complicated to those who lived in it.

 _The End, adventure continues_

* * *

Author's note: And this story finally comes to an end, but the frontiers of thought, time, and space (and politics, which is its whole own set of dimensions) remain. This took longer to finish than I thought, and ended up actually being a fairly long piece. I hope people enjoyed the ending.

I did it, to set up a higher tension level, to bring most of my viewpoint characters together for the sort of thing that would require 5 decently-kitted PCs, and to let them judge each other and find each other wanting, cause that's kind of funny.

Not that I'm done writing about characters, but I wanted to wrap up 'Agents of Yesterday' with the Na'kuhl and Terran incursions finished, the largest post-Iconian War battles are clear. But K-13 is there, the Tzenkethi are around. Plenty more adventures bouncing around the main storyline!

Thanks for reading, please review if you like, or dislike.


End file.
